WTF Wednesday

Posted on July 11, 2012 by Amy

Yesterday we took our weekly pilgrimage to the grocery store. I wasn’t very excited about the trip because of the attitudes of my children, so I was trying to think of the easiest dinners to make to get us in and out of the store as quickly as possible with the least amount of items.

Both children were on their best behavior at the store, which makes the shopping experience much more manageable. There weren’t any bouts of begging or whining about getting snacks or treats. The worst I got was Kamryn saying, “I wish we could have some Otter Pops one day.” I assured her one day I would fork out the $1.99 and get her Otter Pops, but she needed to show me that she wasn’t going to have a complete and total meltdown over frivolous things.

We talked about what frivolous meant for awhile as I continued to grab and toss things into the cart at almost record speed. When I got to the front of the store, one of the cashiers even opened a new register for me – things went swimmingly.

I pushed my cart full of groceries and kids out to the car where I saw a woman about my age, an older woman who I assume was her mother, and a small child loading up the car next to mine. I couldn’t help but hear the frustration in the younger woman’s voice and thus perked my ears up so I could eavesdrop on their conversation.

I know, I know, that’s rude, but I wasn’t going to comment on anything they were saying and it’s not like I could really help but hear them especially when I was right next to them. Here is their conversation:

Woman: I don’t see why I have to pay for that.

Older Woman: You can bring your own bags.

Woman: Oh yeah, and what am I supposed to do? Leave them in my car and cart them everywhere I go?

Older Woman: Well, yes, that is what most people do.

Woman: But then I have to pay for those as well. I’m not doing that.

Older Woman: So you’ll pay each time you come to the store for paper bags, but you won’t pay one time and bring those bags back?

Woman: These people are supposed to be providing me a service and if I want paper instead of plastic, they should give it to me.

Older Woman: They do give it to you, they just make you pay.

Woman: It’s stupid.

Um, I disagree. You’re stupid. So the gist of the story is this: The woman wanted paper bags for her groceries, which are available at this particular store for a price (I think $.10 a piece) but this store also makes a point of promoting “being green” and rewarding you if you bring your own bags – as do most stores – so unless you want to pay or have your own bags, your crap is bagged in plastic. Apparently, “carting around” reusable bags was far too much of a hassle for this woman – you know with how heavy and cumbersome they can be.

I am by no means as green as I should be and I could do more things to reduce my carbon footprint, but as a reusable bag user, I can assure you that reusable bags are the easiest thing for me to do to help the environment.

After listening to this little back and forth between the woman and what I presume was her mother, she left her cart in the middle of the parking lot and drove off. People who don’t put their cart in the corral irritate the hell out of me. The corral was literally 20 feet away. Maybe less.

Maybe if she would take the 5 seconds it takes to put her cart away, she wouldn’t have to pay for those paper bags. The store has to pay someone to wrangle all of those runaway carts and put them away, afterall. I’m sure her mom was just beaming with pride.

WTF Wednesday

Posted on May 23, 2012 by Amy

This morning I had to go to CVS to pick up a prescription so I decided to kill two birds with one stone and run there so I could get my workout in too. Rory wasn’t much in the mood to be in the stroller so I promised him he could pick out a treat when we got to the store if he was good while I ran. He sat like a good little boy the whole way there.

The minute we got in the store, Rory asked if he was a good boy and could have a treat. I told him he was and before I could steer him to the non-candy aisle, he was already drooling all over the M&M’s. It was about 8:30 in the morning, I was not about to let Rory have candy. I got him to settle on some chocolate donuts instead. Sure, they probably have more sugar, fat and calories than the M&M’s, but it’s all about perception, people!

Anyway, this reminded me of a time about 4 years ago when Kamryn and I were at the grocery store. She was somewhere around 18 months old and sitting in the cart as I checked out. I had thrown a bag of Peanut M&M’s on the conveyor belt and thought I had done it without Kamryn noticing. It wasn’t until the woman checking me out held them up and asked me if I wanted to put them in my purse.

I shook my head quickly back and forth while shooting a glance in Kamryn’s direction, which is the universal sign of “NO, AND HURRY UP AND PUT THEM IN A DAMN BAG BEFORE MY DAUGHTER SEES IT!” Seriously, even in writing this out without a picture or video to show you what I did, you can understand, right? Apparently she had never seen a sitcom. It’s the same exact display when “Character A” is going on and on about how big of an ass their boss is to “Character B” only to have said boss come up behind “Character A”, thus ensuring “Character B” try in vain to get “Character A” to shut the hell up. Believe it or not, this is not why the woman is deserving of my award.

Still holding the bag of M&M’s in her hand, she stared at me with a confused look on her face. Let’s just assume I’m the crazy one here. I clearly shook my head “No” so beyond any additional meaning I was trying to portray, she should have at least understood that, right? I guess that was too much to hope for. Instead, she says “You do want them?” and extends her arm out to give them to me, coming within inches of Kamryn’s head. Huh? WHAT? With M&M’s in her peripheral vision, Kamryn whipped her head around and tried to grab the bag. I was a little too quick and got to them right before her chubby little hand could grasp the candies causing an ear piercing shriek to emit from her mouth.

Here is where it gets interesting. The checker kind of jumped back with a shocked look on her face like she was surprised that a toddler would react in such a way. Kamryn, not surprisingly went from shriek to full blown, hysterical cry and completely out of control. The checker, despite her previous reaction, sensed no source of urgency at this point and continued to ring up the rest of my groceries at a snail’s pace.

Meanwhile, I’m trying to console my screaming child with soothing, “It’s OK”‘s and “Shhhhhh”‘s. Eventually, the cashier had all of my groceries rung through and gave me my total. I avoided eye contact with her because I think my glare would have shot holes through her skull. As I was running my card through the kiosk, Kamryn continued to cry and it was then that checker became my least favorite person and earned her award. She leaned in toward Kamryn and crooned, “Oh, it’s OK, honey, your mommy will give you M&M’s when you get home.”

Congratulations, grocery store checker from 4 years ago!

Expletive Title

Posted on April 30, 2012 by Amy

I had big plans today. Big! Huge! After taking a peek at our credit card statement from last month, I discovered that we spent $6 more last month at restaurants than we did at the grocery store. I was obviously a bit disappointed at my laziness and today was the day that I had to turn it around.

A few months ago, I declared that I was going to do a post each Monday with our family menu for the week. Actually, it was the menu of the previous week so I could review any new recipes that I had tried. I think I only posted about 4 weeks of menus, but I kept it the actual menu planning for close to 5 months.

I’m not sure what happened, but sometime within the last couple of months, I got incredibly lazy. We were eating out all the time and when I did make something at home, it was a super processed meal – not the from scratch stuff that I was making before. I noticed that the scale was starting to move in the wrong direction as well which never makes anyone happy.

Today I sat down and decided that I needed to get back into the habit of meal planning, but in order to ensure that I really stuck with it, I was planning for an entire month. I sat down and started to flip through all my recipes and Pinterest to find out what everyone else was eating.

Recipe Mayhem!

I am still only buying groceries one week at a time because our deep freeze is currently being used as storage until we move into a house.

I had my list all ready to go, packed up the kids and off we headed to the store. I was pretty happy – I was feeling organized and like I really had my shit together. I pulled into my parking spot, grabbed my reusable shopping bags (so proud of myself for remembering those!) and went to grab my pur- SON-OF-A-BITCH! ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME???? I forgot my purse.

For a split second, I thought, I’ll just start my organization tomorrow, but tomorrow is my running day and as ironic as it sounds, I don’t like to do too much on the days I run. I drove home, got my purse and went right back to the store. It really only added about 15 minutes to my trip and Kamryn and Rory were very cooperative. It didn’t hurt that the grocery store that I frequent plays the best 90’s music and singing in the aisles always makes me happy.

I still have a few more days before I finish my entire month of meals. Tomorrow, I’ll work on posting this week’s menu so if you are at a loss as to what to feed your family, check back and I’ll have some ideas for you.