Brain Cramp Costs Area Man Time and Money

I violated three of my self imposed edicts today.

1. Don't shop for groceries on Saturday or Sunday.
2. Don't shop when hungry.
3. Avoid panic situations like impending snowstorms, the day before Thanksgiving, etc.


So I'm ready to eat a frozen dog, more snow is predicted, and it's late Saturday afternoon and I show up at Meijer.

Everyone and their uncle was there. Meat and produce, for the most part, was sitting around since Wednesday or sold out. Luckily a new shipment of pork and chicken arrived and I picked up chicken breasts right off the meat guy's cart.

The aisles were congested. All those gigantic kid rides / shopping carts in the shape of a truck were in force as were the scooters for the infirmed, disabled, and sometimes just lazy patrons. All decided to converge and drive right down the middle of Canned Vegetable Lane. Screw it. I bought frozen instead.

Don't ever ask a store employee this question, "Where do you keep your nuts?" I did. Luckily he wasn't a smart ass like me because I would have said, "In my pants. Why? Where do you keep yours?"

The line was very long at the checkout. I was lucky to quickly divine which would move the fastest. I have scouted the various clerks and know which can keep a line moving. Some lines are artificially long because the whole family is attached to just one cart. Note: Men shoppers = speedier checkout. Sorry, but that's the way it is. Still, all the lines were long and I had to wait 10 minutes or so. This is far more time that I usually find acceptable, but wasn't bad under the situation that I blindly walked into.

I saw my honorary nephew, Shawn, with his wife, Tiffany, and their new baby, Austin. This helped pass the time in line as did the impulsively purchased Diet Sprite that I yanked out of the refer. The clerk scanned the empty bottle.

OK. I said I was hungry. Big mistake One hundred, thirteen flippin' dollars. That had to be a record. But thanks to turkey and the chuck 'o pork, I hadn't bought serious groceries for about two weeks. Even so, a box of cookies, Sun Chips, peanuts. Spaten Beer, extraneous side items that didn't match up with the entrees, and 3-for-the-price-of-1 items, needed or not, probably could have been left of the shelves.

We'll see. There's enough here for 9 days of eating. If it all lasts that long it may have been worth the effort.