There are some things in life you simply have to do whether you enjoy them or not. Pay taxes. Go to the dentist. Renew your driver’s license. And every so often, buy groceries.
Now, I understand grocery stores are necessary. If they disappeared tomorrow, we’d all be in serious trouble by the weekend. But that doesn’t mean I have to enjoy grocery shopping. I try to shop early in the morning, just after the doors open, before the crowds arrive. Sometimes it works. Sometimes everybody else has the same brilliant idea.
Then I have to deal with … people.
I’ve come to the conclusion that people are the worst part of grocery shopping. They’re the only creatures on earth who can take a shopping cart, which was specifically designed to go forward, and park it sideways across an entire aisle while comparing the ingredients on two bottles of Ranch dressing.
I’m standing there needing one jar of peanut butter, and they’re apparently defending a doctoral dissertation on condiments.
Then there are the family reunions.
For reasons I’ll never understand, grocery stores seem to be the official meeting place for relatives who haven’t seen each other in years. And where do they choose to visit? Right in front of the milk cooler.
Nobody has ever said, “Let’s catch up over by the canned spinach where we won’t bother anybody.” Instead, four shopping carts create a roadblock while stories are exchanged about grandchildren, vacations and whose knee replacement was the most successful. By the time they’re finished talking, the milk has nearly expired.
My favorite shoppers, though, are the ones who abandon their carts in the middle of the aisle like they were suddenly called into the witness protection program. One minute there’s someone with a cart full of frozen pizza and bananas. The next minute the cart is sitting there all by itself while the owner has wandered three aisles away to compare barbecue sauce.
Checkout isn’t much better.
I can stand patiently behind somebody buying $214.68 worth of groceries. Every item gets scanned. Everything is bagged. The receipt is printed. Only then do they begin looking for their wallet. First comes the purse. Then the smaller purse inside the purse. Then the coupon envelope. Then the reading glasses.
Finally they announce, “Now where did I put my credit card?”
By then, we’ve all gotten older.
The stores assured us self-checkout would speed things up. Instead, they eliminated the cashier and somehow promoted me. Now I’m scanning groceries, bagging groceries and apologizing to a machine that thinks I’m stealing an avocado.
“Unexpected item in the bagging area.”
Yes. It’s my groceries.
Thankfully, I have discovered the greatest grocery innovation of my lifetime.
I build my shopping list on the store’s app while sitting comfortably at home. I pick a pickup time, pay with my credit card and drive to the store. A friendly employee comes to my window, asks if I have any paper coupons and whether I’d like the groceries in the trunk or the back seat.
That’s the only human interaction required.
No blocked aisles. No family reunions in front of the dairy case. No abandoned shopping carts. No machine accusing me of avocado-related crimes.
Some people say we’ve lost something by taking the human interaction out of grocery shopping.
They’re probably right.
I just haven’t missed it.
