…you decide you don’t want that fish you just picked up at the seafood counter. Do you take the fish back or do you stick it on top of the jars of relish and forget about it? What if it was a can of soup from the next aisle over?
Finding things where they shouldn’t be peeves the heck out of me. If I decide I don’t want something I picked out, I’ll take it back to where it belongs even if it’s clear across the store. Or if the store is one of those huge warehouse styles, I’ll let the cashier know I’ve changed my mind on it before she gets a chance to ring it up.
It especially irks me when I see perishables out on store shelves or a bunch of grapes in the freezer. What are these idiots thinking? Don’t they realize that stuff will have to be thrown out because there’s no telling how long it’s been there? Do they leave that kind of food laying around their own home like that? Would they want to eat it? And they had already bought the food, would they be so wasteful? Why do they think it’s OK to waste the store’s and other customers’ money like that?
Wow. I didn’t realize I was going to rant. Feels good though. So what are your shopping habits in this respect?
If I’m in a certain store that I really hate, I tear a small hole in the freezer paper and stick that fish in a real well hidded, warm spot and then conceal it further by placing tall product in front of it.
Well, FWIW being diabetic [and have been for over 20 years] and on a budget, I menu plan pretty much everything, though the random roommate feeding binge that occurs now and then that sucks up food that I had plans for requires me to have mrAru stop at the grocery store now and then=)
I will admit I am one of those who writes out my grocery list in the order I walk the aisles while shopping. I fairly seldom get the urge to just buy something not on my list. Since I use few shopping venues [BJ’s wholesale club, the commisairy on the sub base in Groton, a particular Stop and Shop and a particular Big Y] it isnt difficult to manage.
If I were to need to replace something back in stock, I put it back where I got it=)
[and yes, I return my shopping carts to the cart corrals as well=)]
I always take aborted purchases back to their proper location. I worked in retail long enough to know what a pain in the ass it is to take merchandise back to its rightful spot. I’m sure the employees appreciate those of us who are courteous enough to do this.
I would especially never leave a perishable item on a regular shelf. It just irks me to no end when I find a box of ice cream bars left in the laundry detergent aisle. Not only is it wasteful, it contributes to the store’s costs, which, like theft, we the consumers evetnaully pay for. Other items such as cereal being abandoned in the soup aisle doesn’t bother me as much, but it still mildly annoys me.
In days of old, I worked at various retail establishments, both grocery and variety. Having dealt with the spoileage and cartsful of discarded items at those places, I always put unwanted items back in their proper places.
You’re probably also the type of person that returns your shopping cart to the store rather than leave it carefully balanced in the line between two parking spaces.
I always return stuff from where I found it and it drives my girlfriend nuts. She, on the other hand, will happily drop whatever she’s carrying wherever she happens to be regardless of what kind of store she’s in. Food, clothes, electronics, it doesn’t matter. “They get paid to put it back” is her reasoning. And it drives ME nuts. “Clean up after yourself” is my reasoning.
Needless to say, we avoid shopping together whenever possible. But when we do, she makes a point of putting things back just so she can say with much sarcasm, “See how good I am?”
Sarcasm or not, I win so I’m happy. At least until we get to the parking lot and she tries to abandon the cart…
I worked at a Dominion grocery store in Newfoundland for a year and a half, and was amazed and how many people would leave stuff in the magazine racks right by the checkout counters. Just give it to me and I’ll get somebody to put it back!
I return things to their proper places unless the reason I decided not to buy it is when I only have one or two items and their are unreasonable delays in the checkout line. Then I leave them near the checkout. I’d never do that with something perishable though.
If it is something frozen or perishable, I will take it back to the area it belongs in. I used to leave other things wherever I was at, but I usually take those back to where they belong as well. I hate seeing meat or ice cream stuck in with canned goods, clothing or in the magazine rack at the front of the store. That’s lazy and wasteful. I’ve never seen anyone as they were leaving something like that where it shouldn’t be, though.
If perishable, I put it back. If you don’t, you run the risk that some employee might put it back hours later, possibly making someone sick. Do the right thing.
Sigh, have I taught people nothing! Remember how mothers everywhere hang their heads in shame when their children do not put their shopping carts back in the carels? You do? Good.
When their children do not return merchandise they decide not to buy to its proper place in the store, mothers everywhere don sackcloth and heap ashes on their heads because they have such ill-mannered and uncouth children. People point and laugh at those mothers. They scorn those mothers. They say those mothers did not bring their children up right. Do you want that? No? Then march that stuff right back to it’s proper place in the store right now!
I would most liekly take it back, but there are exceptions, if itwas from a part of the store where it requires help (deli, seafood) I would leave it in a obvious refirgiated section. Other then that, if it was really inconvenent, I would at leat place frozen itmes in the freezer and refrig. items in the frig.
I’d buy the fish anyway, most likely. If I really didn’t want it and was sure I’d never want it, it was loathesome to me, etc. I’d send it back to the hole from whence it came.
If it’s a can of soup or something else non-perishable… hell I’d still probably buy it anyway. 5 Can Soup benefits greatly from the random can of coconut milk or asparagus. If, again, it was a blight upon my existance, an anguish to me greater than being licked to death by kittens, I’d just stick it on a nearby shelf.
On the flip side, If I see these out-of-place items, I will generally give undue consideration to buying them, even if I really have no idea what I’d do with a brick of 2 minute bean threads or peanut-curry powder (both of them at once, though…).
how long is safe for food to be out? Take fish, for example. If someone is shopping and decides at the last minute to not buy a perishable, how safe is it to consume?
I ask because I once saw a lady return a package of ground beef to its rightful place.
The only problem was that she had been shopping around for about 1 hour.
EEK! Lady, don’t put it back so that some unsuspecting soul can buy it and get sick!
Ok, so maybe 1 hour isn’t enough for e coli (or what have you) to form, but that can wreck havock on other stuff, like ice cream: to melt and refreeze.
Personally, I pick up perishables at the very end, but apparently not everyone does.
(and to answer the question, yes I do put stuff back.)
As a rule of thumb from my food safety course, “perishable” things have about two hours of safe life between the temperatures of 40 and 140F (60C).
The lady in your example is only one of the many reasons to cook food thoroughly.
