Buying Food is a Pain

[Beachclubmum]

I feel like I live in a bubble. I go to the store every 7 to 10 days and it is always nearly empty. I’m
able to get everything I need usually. One time I couldn’t get steel cut oats at Aldi but I had already stockpiled some extras here at home, and then the next time I shopped they were available again. I have run to Sam’s Club a couple times to buy big bags of potting soil... I literally think I was one of three people in the store last night the hour before closing. Any other place I shop is Costco and again I’ve just been really fortunate to breeze in, get what I need and leave again with the store being mainly empty.

 

[Glynda]

I broke down and walked to Harris Teeter yesterday. Since I have an order placed to pick up curbside on Tuesday, I told myself it would just be a dash in, grab some bread and dash out. They had someone counting the number of people inside, another cleaning carts. As I looked around I told myself I'd get just one bag. Then I told myself I needed two for equal distribution walking home. They had a better selection than they show online...though not the selection of meats and fresh seafood as usual and no toilet paper and only one small amount of off-brand paper towels. I didn't even look at cleaning supplies as we are OK and they are too heavy. I wore a mask and brought "germ squirt". Washed my hands with it before going in, wiped my credit card with it before and after inserting and then my hands again before leaving. And the whole kitchen after putting away.I felt like there were too many people in there and we came too close... mainly because of stockers and their carts blocking the aisles causing us to have to move around them and would often run in to someone on the other side. Only about half the shoppers wore masks. Oh boy, did my shoulders and arms hurt walking home with two heavy bags (I had them double bag them.) But the worst part of it all was that I couldn't buy the Starbucks Frappuccino that I've been craving! Couldn't drink it wearing a mask inside and had my hands full once outside!Not eager to go again.

 

[clifffaith]

I had a mildly unpleasant grocery line interaction yesterday at Vons. They have one line with a "spotter" sending people to the registers by saying "register 5 is open" etc. Actually there were two mildly unpleasant things. The first was why I'm posting -- a young gal with a loaded cart got behind me. Because we were still standing there with 1/2 our groceries in the cart because the checker was still working on the previous order, and because we'd been told to go to the register when the previous customer was up at the register rather than still unloading, it looked to me like the new stander in liner hadn't realized there was one main line on the other side of the store. It was too early for her to be where she was based on the spacing I observed around me, so I thought she'd just got in line without realizing the other main line was there. I said "there's a line", and gestured to the other side of the store. She snapped at me "she (the spotter) told me to come here". I said, OK, sorry. Then she hollered down to the spotter from register 5 where we were to before register 1 where the line started saying "SHE (meaning me) doesn't want me here". I said No, that's fine if she told you to come down here. By then she's waving her arms around and having a fit, and I snapped "I've already told you three times if she told you to come down here, that's fine".

She went or was told to go to another line, and I'm sure was out of the store 5 minutes before we were even with her loaded cart. The second unpleasantness was for the first time I realized that when we can't pick a line, we can't pick who we stand behind and the spotter's don't care/don't pay attention. The guy in front of us had a loaded cart. The cashier had no bagger. And the only bags they had left that day at 9am (can't bring your own bags in any more) were small bags that are full when they get two liter bottles of pop in them, with maybe a small item or two on top. It took her forever to check the person in front of us out and bag his groceries. We always bag our own, and thought it odd in these circumstances that the 30ish guy in front of us with a full cart of groceries stood there without helping.

 

[Panina]

I broke down and walked to Harris Teeter yesterday. Since I have an order placed to pick up curbside on Tuesday, I told myself it would just be a dash in, grab some bread and dash out. They had someone counting the number of people inside, another cleaning carts. As I looked around I told myself I'd get just one bag. Then I told myself I needed two for equal distribution walking home. They had a better selection than they show online...though not the selection of meats and fresh seafood as usual and no toilet paper and only one small amount of off-brand paper towels. I didn't even look at cleaning supplies as we are OK and they are too heavy. I wore a mask and brought "germ squirt". Washed my hands with it before going in, wiped my credit card with it before and after inserting and then my hands again before leaving. And the whole kitchen after putting away.I felt like there were too many people in there and we came too close... mainly because of stockers and their carts blocking the aisles causing us to have to move around them and would often run in to someone on the other side. Only about half the shoppers wore masks. Oh boy, did my shoulders and arms hurt walking home with two heavy bags (I had them double bag them.) But the worst part of it all was that I couldn't buy the Starbucks Frappuccino that I've been craving! Couldn't drink it wearing a mask inside and had my hands full once outside!Not eager to go again.

I did a curb side pickup at Harris Teeter today. After waiting 5 days they only had three of my items. If it wasn’t for the French Bread that they did have I would have canceled the order. It was a surprise for my other half.

The parking lot was jammed packed. Many people going in and out, most with no masks. No line to limit shoppers. I was surprised how busy it was.

 

[heathpack]

We got another Instacart delivery on Thursday. I saw they put ribs on sale and the weathers hot here and some BBQ ribs sounded pretty good to me. I have a friend whose coping mechanism is to do normal things and he likes to go to the grocery store, so every Friday he texts me to see if there’s anything I need. So a Thursday Instacart order makes sense- he can pick me up an item or two that Instacart might miss. Plus his daughter loves ribs so double bonus would have been getting two racks of ribs, and smoking a rack for my friend and his family.

Again, my Instacart order went great. I placed the order Thursday morning. It arrived Thursday afternoon, 10 min early, my shopper picked great produce. I got two racks of pork spareribs, as I’d hoped. And a whole chicken. All of my items or their designated substitutes.

It kind of kills me a little to pay extra for my Aldi groceries but honestly my order including a 20% tip was $87. Two racks of ribs, a package of bratwurt, a whole chicken, a dozen eggs, two pounds of strawberries, three pounds of pears, three pounds of bananas, a pound of tomatillos, jalapeños, two red onions, three yellow squash, six tomatoes, six heads of romaine, a head of iceberg, a cucumber, a pound of broccoli, a pound of mushrooms, a bag of chips, a package of potato hot dog rolls, ziplock bags and a bottle of ketchup. Ie a ton of food.

I am a farmers-market-heirloom-tomato-supermarket-strawberries-just-ain’t-ok kind of shopper. But I will say, given the pandemic swirling around us, I’m impressed with Instacart. I signed up for the annual membership and definitely can see continuing shopping this way. Maybe when the pandemic cools down, I’ll be swinging by the farmers market for the berries and tomatoes. But for now we are making do very nicely.