Grocery Shopping stresses me out. It's not only the fact that I usually have three little ones with me that turn into starving refugee children as soon as we get through the automatic doors - "Mommy, I'm soooooo hungry!!" says my five-year-old with a slouching walk for added effect.
"My beh-yee hurts Mama. I need a cookie!" pleads my three-year-old as I wheel the cart over to the bakery hoping that they will show pity with a free sample - it's all the work involved in getting my family's weekly food supply that is so over-whelming.
First, there is the pressure to buy the right kinds of food for my family. After listening to countless nutritionists, allergists, fitness gurus and child-rearing experts and then being subjected to such guilt-evoking TV shows as "Honey, We're Killing the Kids" and "The Biggest Loser"; I've surmised that the only healthy thing to eat after you eliminate all sugars, carbs, trans-fats, chemical preservatives, excessive calories, dairy, white flour, red meat, pink hearts, yellow moons, green clovers and purple horseshoes (oh, wait - started reading a Lucky Charms box) is the paper bag that you put the groceries in.
Of course, I can't have the paper bag even if I wanted to eat it because that would be killing the tree that was used to make the bag, and my other option of "plastic" would be adding to the non-bio-degradable waste in our landfills. Yes, the fate of western civilization rests in my decision at the check-out line whether or not to use paper or plastic. I could always do the more noble thing of spending $14.99 on a re-usable canvas bag that holds the equivalent of a cantaloupe and a quart of soy milk, but then I would need to take out a small home loan in order to carry all my groceries home. Maybe that's why some grocery stores have banks inside them. And when the cantaloupe gets dropped by my overly-helpful five-year-old, I will have to waste precious water in order to clean my canvas bag and the world is again doomed.
There are those people who get really excited about going to the grocery store because to them it is an Olympic event of savings. They have a small army clipping coupons for them, they search the Internet for coupon codes, they scan the newspaper flyers for the weekly hot deals, synchronize their calendars to coincide with "double coupon deal day", and frequently pay homage to the art of "buying in bulk". They organize their coupons in a small file folder categorized by their favorite grocery store's aisles, and have flow charts and graphs to determine the best saving strategy. I have no doubt that these people save enough money at the check-out to buy a small chain of grocery stores themselves - I simply don't have the time or the economic savvy to devote my life to being the Alan Greenspan of the Pick N' Save.
Inevitably, when I am running low on time, I usually get stuck behind an over-zealous coupon-clipper or worse yet - someone who wants to have a meaningful conversation about my grocery choices. "Oh, I see you have the new organic wheat crust frozen pizzas in your cart! Are those any good? I want to try those myself, but I heard that they're really expensive. Do you have a coupon for those or are they on sale?"
"Neither", I say reluctantly.
"Oh." says the coupon clipper with a hint of righteous indignation in her eyes.
The check-out line causes most of my anxiety. I find myself justifying my purchases before I even get in line because I know that judgement awaits me in the form of the grocery clerk. Usually this person is a teen-age girl who is more interested in getting done with her shift than scanning my items. She views my heaping cart with annoyance - I am detaining her from somewhere she'd rather be. She greets me with a half-hearted, "hello" and asks me if I found everything I was looking for today. In her head I am sure she is thinking, "Obviously - it looks like she 'found' half the store." but instead she turns to talk to the pimple-faced bagger at the end of the conveyor belt and begins to talk about the party that I am obviously keeping her from.
"Paper or plastic?" squeaks the pubescent bag-boy.
"If I get canvas bags instead, do you have to run a credit check on me?" I ask. The kid just stares blankly back at me.
The other type of grocery clerk that I usually encounter is the one who's been at the job for a number of years and has developed some opinions that she doesn't mind sharing with her captive shoppers. Once when I was waiting my turn in line, I asked the clerk where I could find the plastic dividers that separate one shopper's groceries from the other's. "I don't believe in dividers," was her curt response. I had not been aware that plastic dividers could evoke such passion one way or the other, but apparently, this clerk felt strongly about free-range groceries. She saw a world of groceries not limited to "mine" and "yours", but a world where spaghetti noodles and Spam could stand side by side and not and not be labeled. I'm sure she started a "Groceries Without Borders" campaign somewhere. Dare to dream.
The other opinion frequently offered to me is how I can "save even more with our Savings Club Card". Since when did grocery stores adopt a country club mentality when it comes to offering their customers a deal? Does the idea of belonging to a "club" make their stores sound more posh than the fluorescent lighting and linoleum flooring would suggest? "You mean I can belong to the same exclusive club that allows the sophisticated, unshaven, T-shirt-wearing man in front of me to save on his Marlboro's and Jack Daniels? OOH! Where do I sign up?"
With all the hassle that is involved in feeding my brood, I'm beginning to think that it would be easier to go back to hunting and gathering. Of course, it might be a little difficult to fit a deer in one of those canvas bags.
Monday, March 10, 2008
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