How many here go shopping in the grocery store and open then eat/drink something you picked up there, before you checkout, then pay after you already consumed it?
I never do it. I just can’t. It seems wrong for me.
I never do it, either, although I occasionally let my daughter eat a small piece of candy while we are waiting in the checkout line at our co-op. I’ve seen some parents practically serving lunch in the grocery aisles, though.
I’ve started eating a candy bar or cracked open a soda can, but only when I’m in the checkout line already, so it doesn’t look so suspicious.
What about the grapes in the produce section…
I’ve gotta know if they are sweet or not.
I’ve done that with bottles of pop (like 600ml ones) though I have never finished one before I got to the counter.
Isn’t that the whole point of those “bulk” barrels?
Surely they wouldn’t just leave all that crap sitting there like that if they didn’t want you to sneak some.
Right?
I do it all the time with beverages, usually finishing it before I get to the checkout, and asking the checkout person to throw away the empty container for me. I sample produce unabashedly – though nothing bigger than a grape or cherry, of course. (No apples or peaches, although I’ve been getting nasty peaches lately, so maybe I should start.)
I never open food, for some reason, but mostly because I try not to go to the store hungry, lest I end up with a cart full of Ding Dongs. (Everything sounds delicious when you’re hungry at the grocery store.)
Nope, as a matter of fact, when I was 6 years old, a neighbor brat hit me in the head with a brick. It was bleeding a lot, we were out of bandaids, so we walked to the neighborhood drugstore (back when they had those) to get some more. I objected quite fiercly when mom put one on the gaping wound on my head before we paid for them. “BUT MOM!!! THEY’RE NOT OURS YET!!!”
because I’m dying of thirst. But I’ve done it with snack foods and candy. Mostly as a compulsive thing.
I’m with you, Magic.
I just can’t do it. It’s not mine until I’ve paid for it. Maybe it’s a stupid distincition since I will be paying for it in a matter of minutes, but I just don’t feel right about it.
I also never taste the produce. That, too, seems wrong to me. If it’s really rank, I return it, and I’ve neer been given any grief over it. In my mind, tasting a grape is no different than assembling a piece of furniture in WalMart and testing it out first. It’s just something one doesn’t do. You trust your grocer to provide quaility items. If he screws up, you return it. If it happens often, find a new grocer.
I’ve seen people in the grocery store breaking the stems off the broccoli and purchasing only the tops. Well, if they wanted to sell only the tops, I’m sure they would be at a higher price. The broccoli comes as it is. Deal with it.
I object to children being fed in the grocery store. They are messy, first of all. And the store is not a buffet. I also wonder how these children will learn to delay their gratification if they aren’t taught to wait 20 minutes until they get home before diving into the Froot Loops. That being said, I do understand that occasioinally a situation may arise where the child had to be picked up from daycare immediately after work and, after a quick run through the grocery store there is a doctor’s appointment or some such thing and so the kid needs to be given something. But barring such circumstances, feeding children in the grocery store is a practice I don’t care for.
Yep. I can’t go into a grocery store without picking up a bottle of soda. It’s always opened and half empty by the time I get to the register.
I have when I’ve been feeling faint (I have a blood sugar thing), but I feel extremely guilty the whole time. It’s the first thing I ask them to ring through. I also feel guilty when I add a package of hot chocolate to my coffee before I’ve paid for it. Before the woman at the till can even say “Large coffee?”, I tell her that there’s a pack of hot chocolate in my coffee, so she should charge me for both.
Huh. I guess my wife and I are in the minority – we do this all the time. Maybe half the time we go into the grocery store, we’ve got a bottle of soda or juice or whatever opened and at least half-empty by the time we get to the checkout line. An empty bottle isn’t unknown for us, either.
Man, now I feel like such a thief…
Some stores I’ve been in even have cupholders on the buggies that say “enjoy a Coke while shopping–pay at checkout” (or something like that), probably a paid Coke ad.
I’m with the posters who say they wouldn’t dream of opening something until it is paid for. It would just feel wrong to me.
You shouldn’t feel that way-I’m a cashier and this is so common!
Just go ahead!
But please, DO PAY FOR IT.
Actually, “they” recommend this. (You know,“they”, the mysterious people who come up with all manner of handy advice for magazines etc.) They say that if you have to go to the grocery store while hungry, that you stop off at the milk aisle and grab a pint of chocolate milk to fill you up so you don’t over-purchase.
I buy orange juice by the gallon and when I am very thirsty I will open it and drink… Several times at the checkout counter they’ve told me “this one is open/leaking, would you like to get another one?” And I just tell them I opened it.
For some reason taking a big gulp if you are very thirsty seems OK to me but eating seems not admissible. Can’t you wait until you are out of the store? well, if they are as slow as they are at the place I go to maybe you can’t. yesterday I was ready to kill. If that cashier moved any slower she’d stop breathing. sheesh!
If I’m in the grocery store and they have cold drinks by the checkout line, I will get one and open it up and drink. But only then.
The only time I’ve really done this is when I’ve worked at the store. Of course, I’ve walked into gas stations dehydrated (hmm, wonder why?), chugged an entire Sobe, got another one, drank most of it, and got a third without opening it, and go to the counter and pay. I’ll usually chug the rest of the second after paying, and have the counter guy throw away the two empties, and crack the third as I’m leaving. Boy do they give you odd looks when you do that.
What? It’s not normal to drink nearly a half gallon of Sobe in under 5 minutes?
–Tim
To all those people who sample grapes and cherries, do you know how many grimy, unwashed hands have been pawing all over them? I’m sure they are just teeming with fecal matter. Blech.
I’ve never eaten or drank anything without paying first, but then again I’m anal. See above.