# Thanksgiving Grocery Shopping Tales **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 26, 2013, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanksgiving-grocery-shopping-tales/674820 "2013-11-26T14:57:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2013, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanksgiving-grocery-shopping-tales/674820/21 "2013-11-26T21:30:41Z")
I’ve worked at a grocer. Thanksgiving wasn’t so bad compared to New Year’s Eve, when we not ony had people queueing up to get out of the store but also to get in! ---
**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2013, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanksgiving-grocery-shopping-tales/674820/22 "2013-11-26T21:40:36Z")
> [@kambuckta](#): > > While we don’t have Thanksgiving here, I’ve noticed the same ‘siege mentality’ the day before any major public holiday Actually, quite a few supermarkets are open on major holidays. There’s an important reason for this; there’s always that one ingredient that you forgot / you spilled / you didn’t realize had gone bad until the last minute. ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2013, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanksgiving-grocery-shopping-tales/674820/23 "2013-11-26T21:48:20Z")
What got me when I shopped yesterday is that the supermarket seemed to be completely unprepared for the seige. They had the usual two manned checkout lanes open (and 18 more closed), and there weren’t enough cart-hops to bring carts back into the store. Shouldn’t they have figured this out in previous years? ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2013, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanksgiving-grocery-shopping-tales/674820/24 "2013-11-26T22:20:09Z")
I’ll share my blast from the past > [@Stupid Customer Stories.....](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-customer-stories/341326/42): > > Years ago I working in the local grocery store. > > At this time it was not common to get a fresh turkey for Thanksgiving. Unless you ordered one from your butcher a few weeks in advance you had to do what everyone else did and use a frozen one. > > Thawing a turkey in cold water (the quickest recommended method) takes about 30 min per pound. Cooking then takes an additional 20 min a pound. So for a large group let’s say you have a 20 lb bird. Your gonna need about 10 hours to thaw it out and an additional 6 or so to cook it, that’s 16 hours. > > So I’m happily stocking the shelves one thanksgiving about noon, whiling the time away till I the store closes and I get off at 2:00, looking forward to the feast my mom had prepared………. > > When up walks a woman I’ll refer to as “Hysterical Nut Job” or HNJ© > > HNJ asks me where we keep the turkeys. As I’m walking her over to the freezer I already know this is not going to go well. She asks where the fresh turkeys are and I explain the reality of the situation to her. We don’t carry them, no one in the area stocks them, you have to order one specially. > > So back to the freezer we go. We pick out a bird, read the instructions, do the math and there you go. If you want turkey you’re going to be eating it at 4:00 in the morning. > > This is when the hysterical part kicks in, she starts SCREAMING at me about the 25 people she has coming over at 3:00 and how they expect a full turkey dinner with all the trimmings and how she can NOT disappoint her new husband and all of her in-laws etc etc etc…… > > I tried to suggest turkey breasts, we have plenty of those & they don’t take long to make. This is completely unacceptable to HNJ and only serves to bring her wrath down upon me with greater vengeance. It MUST be a whole bird and it MUST be ready in 3 hours and she DEMANDS to know what I am going to do about it. > > It is at this point that I relate to her in no uncertain terms just how seriously 16 year old boys take their part time jobs. As she prepares to unleash the full weight of her righteous fury, it sinks in. She realizes that she is quite screwed. In fact she could give Ron Jeremy a few pointers right now. Her only option left………… > > fall on the floor in a quivering sobbing mess. > > My only option left………… > > clock out 2 hours early and go home to watch the game. After all, I’m 16, I don’t need this shit. ---
**Author:** ![Kimballkid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b5a626/32.png) [@Kimballkid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimballkid)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2013, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanksgiving-grocery-shopping-tales/674820/25 "2013-11-26T22:23:43Z")
So you were ‘Getting too young for this shit?’ 😃 ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2013, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanksgiving-grocery-shopping-tales/674820/26 "2013-11-26T22:47:31Z")
😉 Something like that, yeah. ---
**Author:** ![Tethered\_Kite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a5b964/32.png) [@Tethered\_Kite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tethered_Kite)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2013, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanksgiving-grocery-shopping-tales/674820/27 "2013-11-26T22:52:40Z")
I send the daughter. She loves to grocery shop. Especially with my money. ---
**Author:** ![swampbear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/swampbear/32/467_2.png) [@swampbear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/swampbear)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2013, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanksgiving-grocery-shopping-tales/674820/28 "2013-11-26T23:46:48Z")
**zoid** that was awesome! Epic, even! 😃 I sit here all smug because every thing I needed to make Thanksgiving dinner was bought by last Friday, except for the collards which I bought Monday on my way home from work when I was near to the good place to buy fresh collards. Hah! ---
**Author:** ![Accidental\_Martyr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ce7236/32.png) [@Accidental\_Martyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Accidental_Martyr)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2013, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanksgiving-grocery-shopping-tales/674820/29 "2013-11-27T03:24:09Z")
> [@swampbear](#): > > **zoid** that was awesome! Epic, even! 😃 Kind of makes me wonder how that marriage turned out. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![SeaDragonTattoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@SeaDragonTattoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeaDragonTattoo)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2013, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanksgiving-grocery-shopping-tales/674820/30 "2013-11-27T04:40:58Z")
I’ll be stopping at the grocery store after work tonight. Weekdays after midnight, it’s usually me, the stocking guys, one cashier and about three other people. Right before a holiday, there might be five more people than usual. It’s the only way to roll. No grannies. No little kids. Aisles devoid of people and the only obstacles are boxes of stock waiting to be shelved. I walked into a grocery store once on a Saturday (on my way to a cookout) about five years ago and felt like an alien who had just been dropped into a hostile foreign territory. It was awful and I vowed never to do it again. I guess people get used to it. No thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Rhiannon8404](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rhiannon8404/32/17929_2.png) [@Rhiannon8404](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhiannon8404)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2013, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanksgiving-grocery-shopping-tales/674820/31 "2013-11-27T06:31:30Z")
Trader Joe’s at 7:30 this morning was a piece of cake. ---
**Author:** ![MagicEyes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@MagicEyes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MagicEyes)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2013, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanksgiving-grocery-shopping-tales/674820/32 "2013-11-28T03:00:51Z")
> [@Rhiannon8404](#): > > Trader Joe’s at 7:30 this morning was a piece of cake. Our Trader Joe’s doesn’t open until 8. :mad: I would so be there at 7:30 if they opened that early! I don’t go grocery shopping right before holidays. It’s brutal out there! I get my stuff early and relax at home while everybody else is being grumpy at the grocery store. It’s great, as long as I don’t forget one key ingredient (this time it’s coconut milk for the dairy-free pumpkin pie–I have a can of light coconut milk–hope that works!) For everyone who’s celebrating Thanksgiving, I hope your turkeys (or Tofurkys or turduckens, whatever floats your boat) are juicy and delicious and your mashed potatoes and gravy are only as lumpy as you want them to be. Enjoy the meal and the nap after! ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2013, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanksgiving-grocery-shopping-tales/674820/33 "2013-11-28T03:14:11Z")
I was in the local grocery store at 8PM today, the day before Thanksgiving, and the store was nearly deserted. I don’t ever recall seeing it this empty this time of day. ---
**Author:** ![Sudden\_Kestrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecd19e/32.png) [@Sudden\_Kestrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sudden_Kestrel)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2013, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanksgiving-grocery-shopping-tales/674820/34 "2013-11-28T03:17:10Z")
My husband found today that the perfect time to grocery shop is at 3:30 a.m. the day before Thanksgiving. The shelves are fully stocked (for a change :mad:), the night staff is still on duty and grateful to be getting away before the madness begins, and the only customers are the usual introverts and misfits that are usually about at that hour—IOW, people like us. ---
**Author:** ![SeaDragonTattoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@SeaDragonTattoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeaDragonTattoo)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2013, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanksgiving-grocery-shopping-tales/674820/35 "2013-11-28T06:02:29Z")
> [@Sudden\_Kestrel](#): > > My husband found today that the perfect time to grocery shop is at 3:30 a.m. the day before Thanksgiving. The shelves are fully stocked (for a change :mad:), the night staff is still on duty and grateful to be getting away before the madness begins, and the only customers are the usual introverts and misfits that are usually about at that hour—IOW, people like us. You know it! I had my usual pleasant and unobstructed shopping last night, and will go again tonight because of course I forgot something and somehow ran out of rum, which I need for the cranberries. I expect no issues. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2013, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanksgiving-grocery-shopping-tales/674820/36 "2013-11-28T08:24:03Z")
Shopping stories you want to hear? I was in fifth grade during the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962 or 1963, IIRC). Even out in Far Off California, there was panic. People were buying and installing fallout shelters. We had a neighbor on our block install one. One day my mother came home from the supermarket and announced that the shelves were EMPTY. Okay, MY Thanksgiving shopping story (told in a bit more detail in another nearby thread): I do my shopping a week or so ahead of time. There were no particular crowds. I bought a bag of animal crackers. That’s what I have for Thanksgiving. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2013, 8:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanksgiving-grocery-shopping-tales/674820/37 "2013-11-28T08:31:28Z")
Okay, my OTHER Thanksgiving shopping story: I do free-lance third-party work for a cash register dealer, doing tech support and custom add-ons for a particular cash register software that I happen to know. We did a rather elaborate add-on module that some of his customer needed (his customers being the supermarkets that he sells registers to), to deal with Thanksgiving promotions. (Buy stuff, earn points for each dollar spent, maintain database of customers’ points, give free or discounted turkeys after enough points subject to all sorts of rules and conditions, all automated by the register add-on module.) That was a few years ago, and they’ve been using it since. Now they needed to change some of the rules. So I got to spend my Thanksgiving week doing that. Okay, it was a simple change (this time) that only took me 3 hours to do. But of course, I got this assignment six months ago, and of course, I waited until TWO FUCKING O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING a few days ago to do it. Count on it. I’m perfectly reliable and predictable that way. :rolleyes: ETA: And I didn’t even really do the requested changes entirely (estimate another hour) but the part I skipped, they don’t really need until their Christmas promotion. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2013, 9:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanksgiving-grocery-shopping-tales/674820/38 "2013-11-28T09:15:34Z")
Okay, here’s _yet another_ Thanksgiving shopping story I have. File this one under “Crimes Against Humanity”. All the supermarkets around here sell hot baked whole chickens. I happened to step into a supermarket on the evening before Thanksgiving a few years ago, just before closing time, hoping to find one particular item I wanted to take to the Thanksgiving potluck the next day. (I didn’t find it.) I noticed a clerk taking down all the remaining hot chickens, of which there were about a dozen, putting them into a shopping cart. She carefully took the cardboard hand carriers off of each container, folding them and stacking them separately. Curiosity got to me. I asked her why she was taking the cardboard carriers off. She said they saved them to use again. WTF? What happens to the whole chickens? Oh, we throw those away, she said. :smack: I questioned her a bit about that. No, that can’t just put them in a fridge and re-heat them the next day. No, they can’t part them out and sell them in those packages of cold pre-cooked chicken parts. And no, they can’t donate them to some shelter or rescue mission for the homeless to have the next day. Somebody somewhere got salmonella or something because they weren’t properly cooled and stored, and somebody sued somebody. Now no store wants to deal with that. They don’t have refrigerator space in the warehouse area to put them. The charity organizations would need (but don’t have or can’t deal with) a driver to make the rounds with a refrigerator truck to pick up the leftover chickens from the stores. Too much trouble or expense, so it doesn’t happen. So on the evening before Thanksgiving, from just this one store that I was in, a dozen hot baked whole chickens went into the dumpster. ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2013, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanksgiving-grocery-shopping-tales/674820/39 "2013-11-29T00:43:59Z")
:eek: I think I would have wept, seeing those chickens thrown out. I was in the food court at the mall one night, just before closing (waiting for someone). I bought a slice of pizza, sat down and was eating it, and watched the pizza stand close up and cash out. Into the trash can went all the leftover pizzas, including the one I’d just bought a slice off of, two minutes earlier, and was in fact still eating. I like using the self-checkout machine, even when there is some problem where it balks and the green light starts blinking, requiring a worker to come over with a key and fix it. I always think, at least I don’t have a job where I have to stand around all night, watching for green blinking lights to go off. I got a turkey in Aldi’s this year. They had frozen Butterball turkeys, large and small, but they also had fresh turkeys, large and small, in the refrigerated case. What a find! I picked one out, bought it, and carried it out of the store, pleased no end with my good fortune. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2013, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanksgiving-grocery-shopping-tales/674820/40 "2013-11-29T01:24:26Z")
> [@salinqmind](#): > > I got a turkey in Aldi’s this year. They had frozen Butterball turkeys, large and small, but they also had fresh turkeys, large and small, in the refrigerated case. What a find! I picked one out, bought it, and carried it out of the store, pleased no end with my good fortune. See my story, a few posts above, where I programmed a cash register to do a complicated Thanksgiving promotion. Spend $400 at the right store in November and get your frozen Butterball turkey up to 20 pounds FREE! 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanksgiving-grocery-shopping-tales/674820.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanksgiving-grocery-shopping-tales/674820.md?page=3)