One of the top ten things I really dislike in life is shopping. I hate shoe shopping, since with size ten narrow feet, hardly any shoes fit me without a) looking like skis or b) they just don’t fit. This is why I wear the same pair of Converse for five years until there are holes in the toes and my Mom calls begging me to, just for the love of all that is holy, get new shoes, please, she’ll pay. Clothes shopping can also be a pain since I’m an inch shy of six-feet tall and a size ten.

Don’t get me started on the nightmare that is jean shopping.

Within the shopping sphere of existence, however grocery shopping ranks as the number one thing I dislike, even above shoe shopping. Let me outline why I think getting my wisdom teeth out was more fun then grocery shopping (since, face it, with my wisdom teeth I was knocked out on all sorts of wonderful drugs and it was a one-time deal).

First, finding a parking space. I don’t know what about food shopping brings out people’s inner-caveman, but I have nearly been speared for a prime parking spot. People can be downright nasty for the prime parking locations (read: spot as close to the door as possible so their lazy asses don’t have to walk). My typical solution to this problem is Mack and I will drive near the front of the store and if we see a spot, cool, we’ll take it and gloat to those people who glare at taking their spot (since clearly they carved their initials into the hide of the parking spot). If not, we’ll walk. Those extra calories we’re burning? Yeah, we feel it and it feels good. 

Walking into the store, people swarm about, hustling and bustling about trying to go into and out of the store. If I want a shopping cart, there is a high likelihood that I will be rammed with a shopping cart from either direction. When I was living in Japan, I got used to being rammed with shopping carts by old people. Mack, my every loving boyfriend, will usually either glare people into submission as to not touch his woman or warn me two seconds before it happens.

Now that is love.

Typically when we get into the store, we start at the right side of the store and work our way left, going up and down the aisles on which we see something that is either a) of interest, or b) on our pathetic excuses of shopping lists. As we’re working our way down the aisles the following ALWAYS happens:

• Someone will be parked in the middle of the aisle. A lot of the time people will apologize for this while other times they will glare at you, beating you with their eye signals that they were there first and they are getting the $0.05 those pickles, damn it.
• There will always be a child screaming bloody murder. Granted, I don’t have kids, so who am I to judge? But if your child is screaming at the top of their lungs for more then five minutes, don’t you think you could take them outside? I know I don’t have kids so, again, I can’t really judge but 9 times out of 10 there is a child screaming and the parents are ignoring it (or letting is scream jumping up and down in the cart. Yes, we’ve seen it. No, it’s not helping our idea of The South). 
• There will always be the hot chick on the cellphone. She wants nothing to do with you and your mundane existence. She like totally needs her food (tic-tacs) and usually can been seen there after her work out so she’ll be in really small shorts and a tight shirt. The guys in the store will be drawn to her like moths to flames, even the married ones. “Of course honey, let me go get the bread on the other side of the store…”
• People like to cluster at the back of the store and be exactly where you want to be. Something about the back of the store draws people back there. Perhaps since that is where the meat is located? And our cave-man instincts demands flesh to eat. Raw. But people likes being back there and will sit and debate Every. Single. Item. while not. moving.
• Glacial pace sets the tone for how people move. When we are approaching the store, I think an announcement is blasted over the speakers letting people know we’re arriving and nothing pisses us off more then if you walk really slowly, preferably in front of us. Now, with older people I find it endless endearing. I just want to put old people in my pocket and protect them from the jerks of the world. If you’re not old and you’re just walking slow to be a jerk? Don’t mind if I ram you with my cart.

I think something else that makes grocery shopping a painful experience is that Mack and I just really suck at it. Mack is really non-committal when it comes to getting food. Usually I get responses of “Does that sound good?”, “I’m cool with whatever.” “I guess.” And “Whatever” when we are shopping together. Mack just doesn’t care what the heck we eat. Just tell him what to make and he’ll do it. With me, on the other hand, I’ll either know exactly what is wanted or I debate everything. This is most likely why Mack is non-committal since I give him so many choices he’s like “Whatever. Like she’ll listen to me anyway.”

This is probably why we let our apartment get down to stale crackers, expired milk, and popcorn before we finally venture forth for food. 

About ten minutes into shopping Mack and I will just get so fed up with people and just the idiocy of it all we’ll be like “Screw it, we’ll come back later” and leave with a lot less food than we should be getting.

Until grocery stores implement a) letting us carry around stick to stab our food selections since we have the cave-man mentality or b) put in bumper cars so I get legitimately ram people who bug me, I don’t think I’ll ever really enjoy the shopping experience. 

How do you handle grocery shopping? Do you like it?

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