Been there with Egg Couple, Sour Cream Man, Frozen Vegetable Woman, and many others. Not just taking some time, taking enough time for me to continue shopping and come back around twice, without moving, being totally unaware of all the people who stop to wait for them before giving up and moving on.
The steak thing is easy to deal with; take one of the steaks. Her decision is made.
Asparagus Boy* must be on a road trip. He was at Miller’s Grocery in Verona today. Makes me wonder if those people have always been around, fretting over a particular product while I gleefully ignored them. Maybe I just swooped in , grabbed what I needed, and never noticed that they were there. And still there, after I’d already checked out.
*Could you draw a Saturday morning cartoon of him? I’ll work on the theme song:
Asparagus Boy,
Asparagus Boy,
Does whatever, he’s unemployed.
Can he stall? Is he done…?
Nope, take a look in aisle one…
Hey there, there goes Asparagus Boy…!
Then do a spinoff with his sidekick, Broccoli Bob!
Broccoli Bob,
Broccoli Bob,
Busy playing with his…
(ETA: It’s a work in progress. Oh, and ALL my songs are sung to the tune of the Spider-Man animated TV show)
Asparagus Boy; Marvel or DC?
ETA: super power is stinky pee.
broccoli knob!
I’m picturing Freakazoid, but green, and sloooow moving.
Well, yeah - unless she’s shopping for someone else. Our folks who do Instacart and Shipt run into picky customers all the time that demand photos and hem and haw over everything.
And, more on topic - having food allergies I HAVE TO read the ingredient labels on anything I buy, which means picking up the package, which means touching it. And if I can’t eat it yes I put it back. At least a half dozen people have handled that box or bag before it got to the shelf. If you’re that worried by all means wipe down containers when you get home.
But when it comes to produce - unless what I just picked up is moldy or something I buy what I touch. And if it is foul I don’t put it back, I hand it off to staff to dispose of it.
my uncle was sort this way …if there were 2 cans of peas that had a 4 cent price difference hed take 45 minutes trying to decide which was better…
and often get both but it was the same with everything …
I wonder whether Asparagus Boy is related to String Bean Lady whom I’ve encountered. Filling her bag with string beans, one at a time, inspecting each bean, and putting all the rejects in an ever-growing pile. She was there for a good 15 minutes, while I patiently waited for her to individually inspect each goddamn string bean. Then she turned to me and mumbled some comment about my “attitude.”
I didn’t even want any string beans (I don’t care for them), but she was blocking the eggplants. I had politely asked her to move, but she pretended not to hear me.
I had a couple stay so long in front of the meat section, I thought they were gonna put up camp. Cart, and 2 big fat asses. Blocked a solid 12-15 feet of access.
Me and some other gal just looked at each other and shook our heads.
Hey, thanks for the tip! I’ll check next time I go.
I never thought to look for UHT milk at Target as I don’t think of them as a grocery store. Guess I should rethink that.
I think we stopped by because I wanted to buy swimming stuff, which they didn’t have. But as long as we were there, we ended up buying a Hawaiian shirt and a lot of shelf-stable groceries, like cereal and UHT milk.
Well, that settles his alter ego: a tomcat!
I will admit to being yogurt expiration date lady. I don’t eat much yogurt and I need it to last so I do check the front ones and then the ones further back to get the latest date. I felt bad about it but I didn’t want to buy something I would throw away in a couple of weeks and I don’t want to have to actually go into a grocery store very much. (I just checked and my current stock has one that expired 5/15 and the rest are in June)
We always have yogurt in the refrigerator. Checking right now, we have a large half-full thing of Greek yogurt stamped 5/9. It’s seperated a bit, so I just gave it a good stir and tried some. Delicious.
Does yogurt “go bad”? Maybe I’ve been lucky, but I’ve never seen it.
ETA: I often use yogurt in lieu of sour cream, another dairy product I’ve never seen “go bad” although beyond its best-by date.
It’s really a question of being reasonable. These people are clearly demonstrating that they haven’t stopped for even one second to consider the needs of people around them, so we have to assume, for safety’s sake, that they make the worst possible decisions out of sheer cluelessness.
But the checking prices thing can be a problem, because a lot of the stores haven’t thought these things through, either. I was shopping the other day, and the store had a good special on steak, so I thought I’d pick one up. But I’m at a point in my life where I can’t eat even a medium sized steak in one sitting, so I tend to buy the smallest one available. But of course, the store has stacked the packages in such a manner that you can’t see the relative sizes without picking up every single one, even though there was room enough in the display to lay them out is a manner so you could at least see the price label on each. So there I am, trying to decide, do I paw through them all like an asshole, or just buy the one on top, knowing that I’m probably going to waste half the steak?
It’s the fact that they don’t seem to ever think that worries me. Sure, any one encounter probably isn’t a problem, but when you look at life in the aggregate, every thoughtless action increases the likelihood of a problem. It’s all a question of probabilities.
Yogurt gets a bit more sour with age. I don’t think it really goes bad, though.
I love some cold leftover steak. That’s what I plan to have for lunch, today, in fact. No need to waste the excess.
I have been reading labels for many years. So, I’m pretty sure what I can have on my restricted diet.
It’s when companies change their products that cause me problems.
If the product has ‘new’ or ‘improved’ we look at the label to see what’s changed.
Perhaps* Asparagus Boy* was merely looking to the asparagus for guidance?
The article didn’t mention just what she did with the asparagus, but you could totally use asparagus spears to throw the I Ching.
I’m not such a great fan of leftovers in general, and left over steak in particular. That’s part of why I go with the smallest steak. I’ve been known to pass them up entirely because all the ones available are too big for me.
Plus, with all the problems with supply, I figure it’s the socially responsible thing to leave the larger steaks for those who actually want the larger ones. Reducing waste at each stage of the process is probably a good idea. What I’ll probably do is cut some of the steak off before cooking, and freeze it for making a stew later on.
But that guy who wanted a huge steak for his weekend BBQ is probably slightly unhappy now.