Most of us have heard about Dante’s nine levels of Hell, but I have just found an even more perfidious tenth level, supermarket grocery shopping.
Come on, grocery shopping? What is wrong with that? Most women probably do it almost every week, and they usually only complain about the ever-increasing prices.
While that is all well and good, it is a totally different story if you are a man and you have to do the shopping instead of your girlfriend or wife, and she has given you a long list of specific brand names to buy that are on sale.
Sure, I have been in the store before with my wife, Barbara, but I never paid any attention to where things were. She always seemed to know where things were instinctively. Maybe it is in the women’s gene pool? I know it sure isn’t in mine.
Barbara recently had knee replacement surgery, so regardless of my immense disquiet about grocery shopping, onward to King Super, I had to go.
I soon discovered that about fifty percent of the items are relatively easy to locate as the isles for the products are listed on the signs displayed throughout the store. The hell part is the produce department, the deli section, and frozen foods.
There seems to be no rhyme or reason for where things are located in the produce department, and to make it even harder, there are organic and non-organic offerings that are not even located near each other. And why in the world is produce situated on one side of the store and frozen produce on the far other side of the store?
It wouldn’t be so bad if the list, for example, said potatoes. No, it said a specific kind, brand, and packaging size. And so the hunt began. The same held true for most of the other produce items, so maybe one-half hour later, I am ready to start with the deli list.
The list said Rondelle cheese and Sargento sliced Swiss cheese in the quarter-pound package. The first thing I found was that cheeses are all over the deli department, and when I asked for assistance, I was embarrassed to learn that I couldn’t even correctly pronounce the name of the cheese. After the man at the counter smiled and corrected my mispronunciation (It is Rondell, not Rondelei), he showed me where it was located.
How was I supposed to know that? I can’t remember ever having a conversation where someone said, “Please pass the Rondell cheese,” or “Would you like some Rondell on your cracker?” Barbara just says would you like some cheese and crackers and I eat whatever she serves me.
I didn’t bother to ask the man for his help with the Sargento slices as I already felt like an idiot. I did find it eventually, but I think I messed up on the package size.
Then, I went on to get all the rest of the items on the way, which, as I said, was relatively easy, before going to the far side to locate KS frozen mixed vegetables. I thought that couldn’t be too hard as the signage said they were in aisle twenty-one.
I first learned that aisle twenty-one was two-sided, each side with about twenty glass doors. Fortunately, I learned from the overhead signs that the frozen vegetables were on only one side. Now, all I needed to do was to slowly walk down that side and look through the glass doors to find KS mixed frozen vegetables.
That proved to be easier said than done because if the person before you opened the door and closed it, the glass fogged up, and you couldn’t see anything inside without opening the door again.
After at least five trips back and forth down the aisle, I could not locate KS mixed frozen vegetables. I was about to throw in the towel and go for help when it dawned on me that KS was probably Barbara’s abbreviation for the Kroger Store brand. During my search, I passed them several times and knew exactly where they were located.
So, almost two hours after I started, I was finally up at the checkout. And no, I did not attempt to use self-checkout as I was sure I would mess that up with all I had in my cart. However, I did remember to bring my own bags. Probably the only thing I did right.
To make things worse, this trip was actually my second trip to the supermarket to buy groceries. However, that first trip was so frustrating and disturbing that I have tried to totally erase it from my mind.
