Death to the Grocery Store

In case you haven't seen or heard, it's a' floodin' down here in Texas.

I would be surprised if I could fill one hand counting the number of days it hasn't rained a drop within the last two weeks. It's supposed to rain all week. So what's a girl to do when she needs to drag her kid out and about in the torrential downpours for groceries? Nothing. I just saddled him on up and took him into the grocery store like a champ. I did, however, wait for a slight break in the pouring.

Upon arrival, it took a small feat to find a cart that wasn't wet for him to sit in. When I'd finally dragged one out from the middle of all the carts, it has no seat belt. I made an effort at first to find another dry cart with working belt, but then just gave up and sat him down unstrapped.

First of all, the produce selection was hideous. All the bell peppers were wrinkly. The peaches were over ripe and bruised. The bananas were all either too green or too yellow (I prefer a nice half-n-half of colors on bananas). The stockers had their large carts in the middle of every single aisle ever, and I was afraid Adrien would reach over and touch one of their carts which would, in turn, send the whole mountain of cardboard boxes careening down on his little (big) head. I could hardly pry our Ball Park All Beef Franks out of the refrigerated shelving because the meat stocker thought it a good idea to cram as many vacuu-packs of franks in the case as possible. They were literally wedged. Like little wiener sardines packed into a little wiener case sardine can.

We managed through the obstacle course to the diary section only to find that the milk I generally buy went from two gallons for $6 to two gallons for $7. Sheesh.

Then I got to the checkout -- finally. I was made to hold Adrien while trying to tell the sacker how to do his job. He plopped all of my fruits and vegetables down in the bottom of the cart while loading all of my canned goods ON TOP OF them. I begged him to please not squish the fruit. I mean, that stuff costs a fortune and it was slim-pickens in produce anyway just to find stuff that wasn't bruised or smashed to begin with. I finally put Adrien back into the strapless seat so that I could better arrange my groceries in the buggy, only to have the stupid high school sacker keep piling things into the cart at such a rate that I couldn't get things arranged. He kept putting things up front in the seat with Adrien. "Please do not put plastic bags by my baby. He will eat it or suffocate on it. Thank you." Then the stupid sacker did it again. He put the bread by the baby. Ugh. I gave up and payed my $115 bill to the cashier. I was not offered help to my car. It was still raining a good deal outside.

I stepped outside of the doors to the mart with my buggy and waited for the rain to let up. It didn't. I trudged to the car, threw Adrien in his car seat, and began to pack all of my soggy groceries into my trunk. It's hard to fit $115 worth of groceries into a trunk with a huge stroller. Meanwhile, I see the no grocery-bagging high school aged punk who ruined all my produce help the lady that was behind me in line to her huge SUV. She had what looked like about $30 worth of groceries. She had no baby. She had an umbrella. I had none of that. The stupid punk had this huge smile on his face the whole time. I'm sure I was a bit bitchy to him, but I wanted my bananas to resemble bananas at home and not banana pudding.

On top of it, I counted how many plastic bags he used when I got home. He used 23 bags. That's a horrid amount! Doesn't he know that those things do not biodegrade?

I really could have used some help to the car. Didn't that used to come mandatory?

That's a lot of groceries. I think it warranted assistance.

23 bags. A mountain of non biodegradable plastic.