The Grocery Store

We visit them everyday. They're essential for living! They provide nourishment for all that are hungry and have wallets.

The good ol' grocery store.

Personally, I'm a fan of grocery stores. They make doing enjoyable activities such as eating, quite affordable. Yesterday during my weekly shopping run, I really thought about the quirks of the grocery store, and also realized some of the problems we encounter all the time.

It starts with the shopping cart. At some places, selecting a cart is like playing Russian roulette. You know what I'm talking about. You get your cart and start strolling through the produce section and all of a sudden one of wheels starts sticking.

Somehow, this problem never shows itself until AFTER you're sufficiently far from the cart bay so then you have to decide to either go all the way back to the cart bay and exchange carts or deal with the annoying sticky wheel the rest of the time!

I'm more of a "basket" shopper these days and avoid the shopping cart altogether. The only problem is when throw something heavy like milk in the basket. Then you have to hobble around the rest of the time lugging a heavy-ass basket around, walking like half your body is suffering from paralysis. At Costco however, the basket is not an option. Conveniently, Costco has oversized carts because everything in Costco is, well, oversized.

Costco shoppers however observe ZERO cart etiquette! I always thought you should push carts like you drive a car. People in the main isles get "right of way," stay to the right (in the U.S.), no tailgating etc.

Apparently Costco shoppers are not good drivers. The worst is when the back of your heals get "rear ended."

"Oops! I'm sorry."
Me Thinking: "Oh I'll show you sorry, soccer Mom!"

The best thing about Costco though is the abundance of SAMPLES. Go there on a Saturday afternoon, and there's no need to buy lunch! As a kid, going to Costco with my Mom and Sister was always great because they are both vegetarian. Keeping in mind that most of the good samples contain meat, I'd always be privy to three delectable tastings!

And speaking of samples, it always really annoying when you saw a sample stand and got all excited only to realize when you got up close that they are giving away like apple wedges or demonstrating a cleaning product...but I digress.

So now that we've got a nice cart or basket, produce is usually the first area we go to. It's always interesting to see people shop for fruit.

You get to the melons and shake em a little, and start tapping different ones. Apparently this tells us something. What the hell are we listening for? Is it like a seashell when you hold it up to your ear and hear the ocean breeze??? Does louder mean riper?

So once we've finished all of our shopping, we make our way up to check out. There, we are bombarded with tabloids and candy! It makes you wonder about this country's state of mental and physical health when every time, every person goes shopping, he encounters such wholesome, quality goods!

The checkers are generally pretty impressive though. They seem to have every four-number code for produce memorized!

In highschool, I had a friend who was a grocery store checker, and used to quiz him on produce codes (though I suppose he could've said four random numbers and I wouldn't know any better). I was the only person who ever stumped him!....the item? Pomegranate.

Yes, yet another in depth-observation and analysis of everyday life. Coming soon...Walmart: The Not-so-good, the bad, and the ugly!