The idea is that rather than pay a lot of money for a guy in a pickup truck to retrieve the four carts still linked in a ring, it would be easier to simply send an employee with a quarter to unlock one of the carts, thus breaking the ring into a straight train which can be pushed back to the corral.
Ooh! Ooh!
- Flavor greetings cards artificially
- Vacuum-pack in tube
- …
- Profit!
I see this a lot, and I have to wonder if they are considering it “family time” spent together. Then there are just the couples who shop together, and I wonder if this is their version of “date night”. Younger couples who haven’t figured their roles yet, as in who is the cart pusher and who sweeps the goods into the cart. Usually they are spending way too much time reading labels and arguing over brands. The middle aged couples are to be pitied. She pushes the cart and picks out all the goods, he pushes his hands in pockets and follows behind. I figure he is there putting in his time, and already has plans to ditch her at home once the groceries are put away and go to the bowling alley to get drunk and bitch about his wife.
My least favorite thing about the food shops are the cashiers who cast moral judgments on my purchases, so what if the hamster wheel cost $7 its my frickin money, and I like to drink microbrews I dunna care if you could get a case of beer for what my 6pack costs. And listen you assbitch ffarmers wife I like the single serving packs of veggies, I dunna care if you got a whole field of corn in your back yard you can eat for free MYOFB!
In the deli under “London Broil Roast Beef”.
Sorry.
Sorry, that’s my fault. I’m forever telling grocery store cashiers and baggers to take stuff back out of bags, to put more things in each bag, etc. If it has its own handle and is large it doesn’t need a bag. It is ok for both loaves of bread to occupy a single bag.
Yesterday, I bought just a bag of four oranges. These oranges were in a produce bag and tied off. Of course, the cashier tried to put this in a bag. Recently, at a different store I had maybe five pounds of stuff and the bagger started to put it in two bags and I told him to go ahead and get it all in one since it would fit easily. “Really, ok, I’ll double bag it.”
I have cloth bags for when I am only buying a few things. I actually had a cashier once put my purchases in a plastic bag and then into my cloth bag. (And she still gave me the $0.04 for having my own bag.)
Sometimes I think the grocery stores are in a secret competition to see who can waste the most bags.
There’s a little bit of truth to this, but for me it’s more practical. My husband and my son both have this annoying habit of suddenly deciding that they hate the food that’s been their favorite for the last three years, only they don’t tell me about it. So it’s not until I notice that we have three pounds of sliced turkey breast and 5 boxes of Honey Crunchy-Os that I go, “Oh, we must not like these anymore.” But asking them what they want while I’m making a list gets me shrugs and “I dunno.” If I can trap them into going to the store with me, I send them off to pick out their own damn lunchmeat and cereal, and then they’ll actually eat it.
Plus, then they’re trapped in the car with me and they’ll help bring in the groceries without me having to cajole them into it.
Pretty smart, WhyNot!
I shop weekly with my Dad, who’s 83 and walks a little slow, but he needs the exercise. He likes to go! I make sure he doesn’t block aisles, too, since he pushes the cart, and is almost deaf.
I realize I’m kind of weird, (hush up! :)) but I have made a printed out list of the aisles. We can get a week’s worth of groceries in about 40 minutes. I plan menus for the week, and write down all the ingredients as I think of them. It’s super-organized, and keeps me from forgetting stuff and backtracking while in the store.
My main beef is the store being out of stock on things that are on sale. I plan menus around the sales flyer. I hate making a second trip to another store! And they never have flat leaf Italian parsley, either, dammit.
I used to love going to the grocery store with my mom. It usually meant extra junk food and a magazine.
<hijack>Southern Dopers, why is it so hard to find veal down here (NC)? I have been wanting to make veal cutlets for months now but none of the markets carry them. I don’t get it. You eat every square inch of the pig, but baby cow is off limits? Any insight? Mmmmm… baby cow… </hijack>
To whomever upthread said that s/he used the self checkouts because there was no candy etc at them…
Sorry to burst your bubble. Today I went back to the store for the one item I forgot (grrrr) and voila! what hadn’t been there on Saturday is there now–a candy display aisle between the self checkouts. Gah.
I would absolutely hate going to the store with my spouse. I hated going with my kids, unless it was a dreary day and we were looking for “filler”(but I did have fun with my kids once there). Taking spouse or kids=spending more money.
Can’t make good barbecue from veal. 
This put in mind my last trip to the local Trader Joe’s. The Larouchians were outside in the parking lot, and TJ’s staff put up a sign reading.
"Your right to distraction-free shopping
Out of respect to our customers, Trader Joe’s does not permit solicitation at or near the front of our stores, regardless of the issue. Please feel free to ignore anyone with a clipboard or cheap folding table without feeling any guilt whatsoever. Please talk to to one of our crewmembers for more info."
And Miracle Whip tastes like ass. But it is the ass of my childhood.
Why for Og’s sake did you stop carrying the color and brand I use for dying my hair?! Oh, you have the brand I use, and just about every color it does, but NOT my color! Dammit! You did this as soon you re-arranged and re-did the store. This is most annoying.
I keep going back in hopes that you you’ll have my color, but nooooooooo, you can’t be that nice, can you? It’s not even an unusual color, it’s medium golden brown. Just a nice, everyday color.
Also, I hate your new set-up. Yeah, you have some fancy-schmancy stuff like an antipasta bar, or a place where you can make your own peanut butter, but I really don’t care about that stuff. What I want is the products that you’ve stopped carrying for some very odd reason.
All of a sudden I can’t find the spices and rubs I need. I can’t find certain soups, I can’t find any number of things. Just go back to the way things were!
They moved my cheese, too.
They didn’t move my cheese, just added to the variety.
You should write a book.
Yeah, write a book and turn it into a series of motivational presentations for corporations. You’ll make MILLIONS!
I can write 10 checks in the time it takes some card-wielding fuckstick to scan their card, try again, enter some number, try again, get the cashier to do it, try again, call a supervisor, try again…
We do this also. We don’t have a list of stuff in aisles, but we do rewrite our list to be more or less the order which we’ll visit aisle - produce first, deli last. The main benefit we see is that it reduces impulse shopping, plus we know we have all the ingredients needed for an entire week of eating.
I cut my cheese.