Grocery Shopping 101

The BBQ Pit
1

I live in a university town and sure enough, the students are back. I know, because I went to the grocery store today.

Parents, do your children a favor and familiarize them with the inside of a grocery store BEFORE they go to college. So many of them here have clearly never stepped foot inside, or else they wouldn’t be acting like morons.

For any high school seniors who will be entering a university next year, I offer this crash course so you can be miles ahead of your peers when the time comes.

  1. The aisle is little more than two carts wide. So when you take your half out the middle, you are effectively blocking the aisle, especially if you’re parked in the middle while you browse the cereal thirty feet away. You should pull your cart over to the side and have it next to you so the people can get through.

1a) Your cart should not be at an angle to the aisle, not perpendicular to it.

1b) If someone moves your cart so they can get through, do not give them a nasty look. You are the idiot that blocked the aisle. This isn’t showtime for you, you don’t have the aisle all to yourself, superstar.

  1. I realize shopping is more fun in a group of four. However, please realize that your group is now four times as large as one person, and you are now blocking four times the aisle. If you must do this, at least have the courtesy to actually be shopping, and not just hanging out in the supermarket aisle while other people are trying to buy food. This isn’t a party, it’s just a store.

  2. It may surprise you to know that there are other people in the store. Thus, when those people need to get around you because you’re parked in the middle of the aisle, or have simply stopped and are gazing around in confusion, please don’t consider them rude for wanting to get past you and continue their shopping. As with (1b), you don’t have the store to yourself.

3a) You might also notice that many of these people seem to be in somewhat of a hurry. Unlike college students, they actually have some place to be after 4pm, so they would like to get their grocery shopping done so they can go be there. For them, this is not a social occasion; they are simply buying food. That’s why they’re passing around you as you lollygag your way up and down the aisles.

  1. I realize most of you are on a budget for the first time. You should keep track of what you’re buying and how much it costs. This will avoid the situation I have encountered TWICE already where a student has all of their groceries checked out and only then realizes they are way over what they have in the checking account, so they have to start putting things back. This is embarassing for you and annoying to everyone else.

  2. Finally, those places in the parking lot with all the shopping carts in them are corrals; they’re where the carts live until they go in the store. The carts are even more inexperienced than you and cannot find their way to the corral on their own, so please guide them there. And by “guide” I mean push them all the way there. Even with a helpful point in the general direction of the corral they will not find their way. You really have to take them all the way there.

  3. When leaving (and entering) the parking lot, you may notice a lot of people with carts going in and out of the store. Since there are people walking in the lot, and cars backing out of spaces, perhaps 75mph is not a safe speed for travelling in the lot. It’s worth the loss of valuable time where someone could be admiring the power of your ride to take it slower.

I hope this guide helps people who have not encountered a grocery store before. Practice these tips and soon you’ll be shopping just like someone who hasn’t had food crammed down their throats by someone else for the past 18 years.

2

Hell, a lot of adults probably need this guide. I hate going to the grocery store because of all the asses who take up an entire aisle to themselves. They are the same asses who give me dirty looks when I walk by the product at which they are blankly staring. So sorry, didn’t mean to block your view for a whole second while you were contemplating the penny difference between the varieties of mayonnaise.

3

Oh yes… I recently witnessed a group of college girls debating at length over what kind of salt and pepper to buy.

4

I just started college, and I’ve noticed every single thing you’ve talked about. I’d like to add a few more:

  1. The grocery carts are STORE PROPERTY. They’re not a free ride, and in all likelihood it is considered stealing to haul your six-packs the half-mile back to the dorm in it because you’re too fucking lazy to carry them.

  2. An 18-cent difference is not that much. I know it adds up, but saving 18 cents at the grocery store isn’t going to help you pay for your books. Especially if you just loaded up five bags full of potato chips and Oreos and candy bars.

  3. Did you ever think that there might be a correlation between the fact that you live on Pepsi, chips and Hostess SnackCakes and the fact that you’re gaining weight and feel sluggish and under the weather more often?

  4. AM I THE ONLY EIGHTEEN-YEAR-OLD IN THIS COUNTRY WHO HAS SOME BASIC CULINARY SKILLS? A few of my classmates can’t fucking make RAMEN!! That, folks, is a sad day indeed. I cannot be the only kid whose parents actually had things to do and advised me to make my own dinner.

5

While I know that a ten minute delay while conducting your grocery shopping is a hair’s breadth from The End of The World As You Know It, such events will occur with alarming and depressing frequency in any normal life. The idea that someone does not immediately know all the rules and regulations you expect them to stick to is indeed a pressing concern, as revealed by a recent Gallup poll of 1000 crotchety Baby Boomers. College students, being young, are also well known as the source of Everything That is Wrong With the World. No inconsiderate assholes exist outside of college, as maturity brings great wisdom and consideration along with senility and incontinence. Moreover, I realize that everyone should know exactly what groceries they require before entering the store, and to change one’s mind or browse the available selection is a sure sign of a dissolute character, perhaps even demonic possession. I, for one, am never tempted to linger over the selection of fruits and vegetables, or change my brand of hot sauce. In fact, the vast, even embarassing bounty available in modern supermarkets frightens me. I believe the government should strictly regulate those foods available for purchase, so as to eliminate any possible delay while in the supermarket.
Additionally, I am aghast, nay indignant, that some jerk would try for a moment to leaven the task of shopping by making it a social activity. I, as I imagine you do as well, prefer to push through, head down, muttering to myself, throwing random items in my cart as taking the time to select individual items might mean I delayed some fellow shopper or myself. I recommend anyone who delays me, even a moment, or displays any amount of selectivity regarding their food, be immediately lobotomized and shipped to France, or some other similarly choosy European country.

Oh, and Chas.E? It is indeed a tragedy that there are hundreds of varieties of pepper available, as well as many brands, types, and quantities of salt. I would tell you exactly how many, but I can’t linger long enough in the aisle to see them all.

6

Amen to that. I see fellow adults in my grocery store and they make me wonder how it is possible to become an adult and not realize the basics of how a grocery store works.

12 ITEMS OR LESS: this means what it says (yes, even though it should be “fewer,” but at this point, I’m thinking that changing it now might be too confusing to the handful of stalwart souls who have in fact managed to master the concept)

PLEASE HAVE YOUR COUPONS READY: Now this, granted, might be misleading, because “ready” is such a vague term. I’m going to go out on a limb here and propose that “ready” means in your hot little hand hand, or even in your pocket, or possibly on top of your purse. It does not mean “in your glove compartment.”

ARE YOU HANSEL AND GRETEL? No? Then why are you leaving a trail of food on the floor behind you? Is it so you can find your way out? Or is it because you are too lazy to pick up the food that your child pulled off the shelves as the cart rolled by?

MUST BE 21 OR OLDER TO PURCHASE ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES: (yes, finally returning to the target of the OP). Brother, I’ve been there. I sympathize, but in a more abstract way that doesn’t involve me waiting behind you while you try to convince the check out person that you are 21 but the dog ate your ID.

Great OP, by the way. #5 in particular is worthy of review by the population of my local grocery store. We have a big wayward cart problem.

7

And while you’ve got them there, please inform the kiddies that the grocery store is not a playground, and that the various toys are not put there to be played with. Around here, at least, it’s a rare trip to the supermarket that doesn’t involve me getting mixed up in an inadvertant game of dodgeball. Where are the parents? Usually looking at something at the other side of the store. Sometimes, however, Ma and Pa are right there, gazing proudly at Bubba and Sissy.

My daughter, on the other hand, while not perfect, has been helping us shop (and actually helping, not just pretending) since she was a preteen. She’s picked out new fruits and vegetables for us to try, as well as new meats. Sometimes these work out, sometimes they don’t, but at least we all learn something. She’s a pretty good cook by now, too (she’s 22) and can bargain shop with the best of them. I’m pretty happy about the way she turned out.

8

Trucido wrote that, “College students, being young, are also well known as the source of Everything That is Wrong With the World.”

No, no, no, Truc. High school students are Everything That is Wrong With the World.

(Actually, in my opinion, whiney, clueless, holier-than-thou senior citizens are more contemptible then anyone else. But that, as we know friends, is another thread.)

9

No, no stuyguy… I think it’s been clearly demonstrated that inconveniences while shopping are the source of Everything That is Wrong With the World. :slight_smile:

I do have some choice words and steel-capped toes for high school students, college students, and the whining elderly (is there any other kind?).

10

I have news for you: they’re all basically the same. You have two basic choices, salt or iodized salt, ground pepper or peppercorns. Let me save you the effort on your next trip. If you have a pepper mill, get the peppercorns. Always buy iodized salt, it’s healthier.

11

Save yourself the aggravation, shop when the pro’s do - mid morning and mid afternoon of work days. It’s like synchronised shopping as professional homemakers weave around. A veritable ballet of skew-wheeled chrome.

12

I learned to shop after midnight wherever possible. The store is deserted at that hour and I don’t have the problem of idjits. I take that back. I occasionally get drunk idjits, but they’re harmless.

Robin

13

What sort of low-born, drooling simian would buy their salt and pepper at regular old grocery store?
Tell me, can I get Tellicherry peppercorns at your grocery store. La fleur de sel? or even sel marin?
Appalling, really.

14

Chuckle. One correction - usually the corrals are empty. All the carts are out grazing in the parking lot somewhere, awaiting the arrival of Little Bo Peep in the form of a grocery store employee gathering up the lost sheep.

Whatever the age or social status of the perpetrators, this is one of my pet peeves. I just love spotting an apparently open parking slot somewhere in the line of cars, then finding it occupied by a damn cart. And no, hooking the front wheels of the cart over the curb doesn’t make the slot available again. Not too mention the entertaining game of “bumper cars” from the unchaperoned carts being rolled around the lot by mother nature on a windy day.

15

I love the shopping cart issue, that cracked me up. I have seen people that are literally parked NEXT to the cart corral and leave the damn cart in the parking area. I mean really, how hard is it to walk 4 feet or even 25 feet to place the cart in a safe place where they don’t get knocked around and scratch someone’s paint.

BTW, I have to agree that there are a lot of adults that need to learn the basics of shopping too.

My mother taught me how to shop long before I was a teen. Yes, long before as she died when I was 15. I still know how to read labels to find the best deal for your money.

16

You know why I hate the shopping cart perps? Because I’m jealous. After I have been shopping for an hour and am facing going home and unload all those groceries, I so want to abandon my cart where it is and not walk those extra 25 feet. Every single time, the angel and the devil pop out on my shoulders and have the exact same arugument, about convinence, about “everybody doing it”, about civic responsibilities and the times it has pissed me off to have a good spot blocked off by a cart. And the fucking angel wins every single fucking time.

I am jealous of these people with there smooth-talking devils. If I could get one–or a gag for that damn angel–my life would be so much easier.

17

Such a gag exists Manda JO - it’s called alcohol :wink:

18

Now that the groceries have been rung up, and the nice person behind the scanner has give you your total, you wait until that very moment to fumble around in your pocketbook for your CHECKBOOK???

Grrrrrrrrr
Phouchg
Lovable Rogue

19

Heh…I work at a grocery store, so I’m going to have to restrain myself and try to keep this as short as humanly possible.

DEBIT/CREDIT CARDS: If you don’t know how to use your debit card, and have temporarily forgotten your PIN number, the express line at rush hour is not the time to learn. If you’re paying by credit card, and it gets declined, trying it another 20 times won’t make it go through. And, unbelievably enough, it’s NOT the cashier’s fault, as much as you’d like it to be.

PAYING WITH LOOSE CHANGE: Paying for your $25 order with a large bag of unrolled coins is going to tick off both the cashier and the other customers waiting behind you, so have some consideration. And please (!) don’t pull sweaty money out of your shoe to pay. I don’t want to touch it, and some poor soul is going to get it as change at some point- yuck!

FORGETTING ITEMS: If you leave the lineup to get an item you forgot, have the courtesy to hurry and get the item, not wander around the store picking up a bunch of *?$ while the cashier and other customers are waiting for you. If you leave the line and AREN’T back by the time your order is up, I think you should lose your place in line.

CONSUMING FOOD BEFORE PAYING: It’s ok to eat something, save the wrapper, and have the cashier scan said wrapper while she rings through your order. If you consume items that are sold by weight, that is shoplifting. The same goes for letting your kids graze in the candy section of the bulk department.

KIDS: If they are screaming and having tantrums, please take them somewhere to calm them down. And don’t let them ride on the conveyor belt…your baby’s wet diaper is sitting where I have to put my food!!

CLOSED TILLS: If the chain is across the end of the till, the light is off, and there is a “closed” sign on the belt, that normally means that the till is NOT OPEN.

SENIORS: Please have a little patience if a senior citizen is in line in front of you. I know that they take a couple minutes extra, but some of them really can’t see or move very well. They’re usually going as fast as they can. Tapping a quarter on the counter, looking at your watch and sighing loudly isn’t going to speed anything up, it’s just going to make them self-conscious and nervous. You’ll be elderly someday too, and I’m sure some kindness and patience would be appreciated.

20

Jesus mother of god, you’re bringing tears to my eyes with the painful realization that I’m up against this next time I go to the grocery store. Aigh!

Here’s one. If you’re old enough to be shopping on your own, living on your own, making your own food-purchase decisions, you are also old enough to know it is inappropriate, not to mention fucking stupid, to be riding in, on, or draped over the cart. You’re a fucking grownup. Get off of the goddamn handle and stop giggling like a moron while your friend pushes you around. I can’t believe how often I see this, and then the stock boy has to play hardass and tells the jokester to get down. Hello? And you got admitted to college? You’re this hard up for jollies?