Adventures in Grocery Shopping

Today I woke up, and in true “adjusting to Daylight Savings Time” fashion, I laid in bed for two extra hours thinking about how I did not have any milk, and therefore could not stay in bed most of the day drinking coffee… I weighed my options thoroughly…  I could A) drink black coffee, B) get up throw a hat on and hit a coffee drive through, C) go to the store, D) put on rain boots and go raid my parents refrigerator/ use their espresso machine…  (Yup, I sure am a 26 year old with a garage door opener to my parent’s house). I may or may not have opted for the option that did not involve putting on real clothes, or brushing my hair...

Needless to say, a trip to the grocery store was inevitable at some point today. I mentally made a list, then thought better of my post daylight savings time/ overworked brain capacity, and made a physical list as well. Lettuce, spinach, kale, all things green, Milk, Laundry detergent etc. and mentally prepared myself for a Monday afternoon of grocery shopping.

All in all, Mondays are really the best time to go, which works out really well for me since I almost always have Monday’s off. Weekend grocery shopping is just about enough to induce a flare up of stress related eczema, by the time you find a parking place, wait in line, run into every single person you could possibly know… It’s not that I’m anti-social, I just like to be efficient when running errands. Monday afternoons you typically run into working women on a lunch break, housewives, or the few random college students… it is far less chaotic, the lines are shorter, and the parking is ample. Plus since I’m less worried about running into people I might actually know, I can get away with going to the grocery store on laundry day in some sort of really colorful, poorly put together ensemble.  One of these days I’ll figure out that I should just throw on yoga pants and a sweatshirt, and head to the store, but my mind always flashes to secret footage of people from What Not to Wear, and I think better of it.  Granted, my “real clothes” outfits might actually look less put together than my yoga clothing, and considering the fact that yoga clothing would actually be somewhat appropriate since I am a yoga teacher, is all beside the point. I end up in “real clothes” consisting of skirts and leggings, sweatshirts and down vests, and probably look a little deranged, or at least color blind… but in an odd way I seem to fit in with the other shoppers.

I have always been the type of person who loves to entertain, and who loves to spend money on fancy cheeses, breads, organic vegetables etc. I have been in denial for quite some time, that my food budget and current finances don’t really allow for my weekly grocery outings to consist of fancy cheeses, and fancy grocery stores (at least not all the time). As my dad always likes to tell me, I have champagne taste on a beer budget. Sometimes I ignore this fact, but on days when I’m feeling rather financially responsible, and a little more realistic, (these are mostly the days when I’ve just made a payment on my credit card, or have balanced my checkbook, and the financial reality is fresh in my mind) I load up my reusable bags and head to the discount grocery store. It isn’t all bad… actually I can get organic lettuce there for really inexpensive, and the bulk food section is great. No, there is not a huge selection of fancy cheese, but I can get most of what I need, and can escape with a weeks worth of groceries well within my budget. I sometimes run into interesting characters while I am there… but again, my laundry day outfits act as camouflage… beer budget/ look like a townie.

My brother often tries to tell me that the grocery store is a great place to “meet someone”. Personally I think this is one of those weird dating myths… sure, maybe if I’m browsing the produce section at Whole Foods or something… but I very much doubt that I am going to meet the love of my life at the Winco in McMinnville.  I can’t really picture a meet cute, happening there. I’m wearing rain boots, and 5 layers of un-matching clothing, and then suddenly as I’m reaching for bunch of scallions, some tall dark and handsome stranger is also reaching for the same scallions and our hands brush against each other… and we end up talking for hours about cooking… No. Just, no. I’m not saying it could never happen… but I am saying the odds of it happening in McMinnville are slim to none. Especially when you factor in that I am a focused and efficient shopper. From time to time I will aimlessly wander the aisles letting the products inspire a menu, but more often than not, I am a list making shopper… I pretty much stay on task, get in, get what I need, and get out. Sure, I make eye contact, am polite, maybe even make small talk with the cashier… but for the most part, I am not in the mind set to be meeting people.

Though I might not be meeting my future mate or BFF at the grocery store, I do often find myself in line behind a kindred spirit. I always love when I’m unloading my cart, and the person in front of me has similar ingredients. It somehow seems encouraging to see a elderly women with cans of coconut milk, stocks of lemon grass,  bulk foods bags of exotic rice or cous cous, bags  full of apple (which I of course always assume are going into a pie). As encouraging as it can be to see similar items rolling down the conveyer belt, it can be just as discouraging to see some of the things people are buying.  Bags of chicken nuggets, frozen dinners, jumbo packs of hot dogs (I always secretly hope that people aren’t judging me when I buy these for my dog…) There is a lot of crappy food out there… and sure a lot of it tastes really good… but there is a difference between having mostly veggies and an occasional box of mac and cheese, and having a cart full of tater tots, 10 boxes of mac and cheese, and a giant bag of fruit loops. But I really do try not to judge…

 I used to have a notebook full of interesting things I saw in front of me at the line in the grocery store. I’d discretely try to note the items, or if it was awkward, I’d sit there and try to memorize what the 3 most random items were, and try to figure out a back story for the person.  Two cans of cat food, some bouncy balls, and a romance novel.  Hot sauce, mouse traps, and a box of condoms.  Marshmallows, rice noodles, and anchovies…  Who are these people?

Well, ok...sometimes I am these people… once I made a late night grocery run that resulted in me coming home with hot dogs, tampons, and chocolate milk…. Nothing else.  And once I ran out of toilet paper so I ran to the downtown market since it was half a block from my house, but I felt weird only buying a pack of toilet paper, so I also got two plumbs… if anything two plumbs and a pack of toilet paper is actually more awkward to purchase than just a pack of toilet paper… but I panicked!

Minus the pouring rain, and the questionable outfit choice, today’s shopping trip was pretty uneventful. I’ve been trying to eat more salads lately, so I got some items to spice them up, pears, forbidden rice, goat cheese, spinach, kale, shallots, lemons, beets, artichokes… pretty standard grocery fair. I had a nice little chat with the check out woman about sautéed beet greens, and then she looked at the rest of my items and was like “You are sure eating healthy!”

It’s all a ruse… not really, but I am trying to make up a little bit for the giant ass cinnamon roll I ate yesterday... plus god knows I didn't want anyone in line behind me to judge my meal planning, or to start discretely scribbling down my awkward purchases... =)