A CONFUSING DAY

       Around here, I get the groceries. The micro Manager does the shopping. In other words, the Micro Manager decides what to buy. Her shopping depends entirely on fliers and specials. She doesn't make a menu for the week and then buy groceries to fit the menu. She matches to the max. Unfortunately the Micro Manager is not physically able to run around stores and pick things up. 

      This morning I started out with a list for 5 stores. My plan was to only go to two stores. With these restrictions in finding groceries to fit the list it can get confusing. Grocery stores don't make it easy. There's a hot price but it's for one item only. I got caught an that one this morning. 

     So there I was trying to find out which store had cookies on sale and whether this store would match or not. They didn't match. Same with the crackers. Oh yes pick up my frozen stuff last. Just remember , I was 80 when I first bought groceries. 

     So needless to say I was a bit stressed by the time I finished the groceries.

     As I was at customer service they asked me if my wife was in the store . Well no,  but there was an Asian lady who fell and cut her leg.  As I was leaving customer service another employee rushed up to me and asked if my wife was in the store. I just got out the door and another employee rushed up. I wondered , what have I stolen now? She also wanted to know if I had a wife in the store.

     Just then another staff member rushed up to say that the problem had been solved. An elderly couple had got separated. The wife was waiting after paying for groceries. The husband was looking for his wife. Why were they chasing me? I had a red shirt and the guy they were looking for had a red shirt. 

   It may sound silly and funny but I thought how stressed these two elderly people had to be. I felt sorry for them.

    I had seen the man with the red shirt. He looked confused. I almost asked him if I could help him. If I had asked it would have saved a lot of upset. 

    So with the challenge to find my groceries and being incorrectly identified, it was a stressful day.

FIRSTS IN LIFE

      Electica   wrote about the first time she bought a car. 

       This reminded me of a first for me when I was quite old.

        I was 80 years old the first time  bought groceries. Yes, I went with the Micro manager for years as the cart pusher, but I never actually shopped and bought the groceries.

       No mother of a farm boy was going to send her son to town to get groceries . So I didn't buy groceries while I lived at home.  At the time I was growing up we did not buy very many groceries as we prepared our own food. We had all our own meat from the farm. Our vegetables were limited by the time we could store them. 

      When I left home to go to school, I boarded so I did not have to buy groceries. One land lady I had would phone her order into the store and I would pick it up for her. 

     Then when I went to the Arctic we were given rations. In other words we were given enough food to last us a year. These rations were prepared for someone who didn't have a store that they could buy groceries from. I remember my rations came in two huge boxes that would fill the back of a pick up truck. 

     So recently it was taking the Micro Manger a long time and much effort to buy groceries. One day I finally said , "You're not buying anymore groceries. " 

    And that's it. I bought all the groceries from then on. The Micro Manager makes a list and I shop. 

   How do I like buying groceries? It's great. It was a learning experience that was good for me. 

THE TIPPING POINT

     Now I read the first ten pages of The Tipping Point. I enjoyed it. So after 10 pages , I'm an expert on the little things in life that make a difference. Particularly something that puts things over the top.

     A tipping point occurred in the family recently.

     The Micro Manager puts a tremendous amount of research into grocery shopping. Most of the research is from the weekly fliers from the grocery stores. As a result the grocery list contains sale items and rarely anything at the regular price. Now items on sale price are sometimes purchased because it's a good price and might not go on sale again.

     As a result our storage room has gradually been getting fuller and fuller. We are buying more than we eat. We have two deep freezes. I'm not sure how long our supply would last. 

    I quite often tease the Micro Manager that she's some kind of survivalist who stacks up a year's worth of food.

    Now in the last couple of weeks I've been looking at best before dates. I found pickles that were best before...well there was no best before date on them so it's hard to tell how long they've been on the shelf. The micro manager got curious and checked some dates. She found products that had best before dates in 2015.

   Now I know that products are just fine after their best before dates. But when you look at a product that's past it's best before date and you have lots of the product it suddenly becomes a problem.

    So the Micro Manager made the realization that she has too much food in the store room!

    There was a tipping point. I hope it's worth something. Somehow, I think that she will continue the same shopping routine. We shopped today and some things were weekly items like milk, but there were still a few sale items.

     I think the point needs to tip some more!

I Had to Shop Today

     Those who follow me know that I am a reluctant shopper with very few skills  and no desire. Today I had to do the weekly grocery run as my micro manager was quite under the weather.

    The micro manager always has a long list for two stores. Some items on her list are optional. She watches for them to go on sale. 

    When I do any shopping for her I demand a highly detailed list. So brand, size, cost and number are very explicitly written out. Why do I demand this? It comes from the famous toilet paper episode. Toilet paper was on sale and since I was going by the place I was asked to get toilet paper. I was given the specific brand with a x2 beside it. I came home with two cases instead of the two packages she wanted. Nothing on her list said packages. So after that the list had to be very precise.

    I had two places to go today. The first place I bought 3 grocery items and a pharmacy item. So I wrote down prices and consulted my notes before I went to the cashier. Well, my mandarin oranges were keyed in at the wrong price and I had to get that adjusted.

    I needed much more items at the second place. There were two items I could not find and I picked up two others that I knew to be a good deal. I also needed two prescriptions and one was already fouled up as  they only had 100 pills instead of 400. Through  the cashier and check my slip. Oops they keyed in the wrong grapes. So I had to go to customer service and get that corrected. 

    So I arrive home and go over in detail what had happened. The first question was , "Why did you only get one milk?" "Oh, I'll bet I left it in the car!" Sure enough one milk was left in the car. Then another question. Where are the grapes? We couldn't find the grapes and then it slowly dawned on me that when I went to customer service to get the adjustment on grapes that I had left the grapes on the counter. 

    So with all these disasters, who would want to do any shopping? On the other hand if I did more shopping, I'm sure I'd get better at it. Is my micro manager going to delegate the shopping to me? I doubt it!

My Grocery Shopping Dilemma

    Every Wednesday afternoon here is the grocery run. I'm involved as the taxi driver and as my manager says, "You eat here too." So that means that I participate in grocery shopping and I don't really have a problem with that. We do the one shopping trip and don't make little trips every time we run out of something.

    At our place we eat three meals a day at almost fixed times. Our breakfast is a cereal, toast, coffee, juice type of breakfast.  Lunch is some combination of soup and?or sandwiches . We also have raw veggies and fruit.

    Dinner is a cooked meal. This meal usually lasts for a couple more days.

    We eat well.
    
     So if you eat like this you have to have the groceries on hand. 

    Now here's where things fall part. My manager looks through all the grocery fliers for the week and picks out all the specials and that's what's on the grocery list. So we get to the store. Oops, we can find the first special. After a while we find a staff member to ask about the product and wow, it didn't come in this week! The next item we look for and find that there's nothing on the shelf as they have run out of it. The next item we look for is not in this store but another store. Some more oops. The next product on special doesn't look too good so we won't buy it. So the manager gets about half the things on her list. 

   Then we look for the basics like bread, milk and fresh produce. Much the same thing happens here, but there's more to choose from.

   I realize that there's more than one way to shop for groceries. I dislike my manager's method and every once in a while I whine about it. So I'm challenged  by the comment, "Well, how would you do it?"

   Well, this is my proposal. I would make a menu for the week. I would make a list of what is needed to produce this menu. There are some regulars like bread , milk and fresh produce. I would find these products and that's my shopping trip. Yes, I would have to pay attention to specials. Cold cereal is sometimes on sale and I can eat anything when it's cold cereal. There's usually some kind of jam on sale. My favorite soup goes on sale from time to time.

    My key point is that the menu is where you should start your shopping trip rather than the grocery fliers that come in the paper.

    Oh yes, I admit that I don't like shopping.

    What do you think about grocery shopping? What method works for you?