Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Grocery store rants

Rant #1--I picked my 22-year-old up from the subway and swung by the grocery store on the way home. Matt grabbed a few things we needed while I went to the prescription counter. When I caught up with him, my jaw dropped. There was a milk jug in his cart with a pink cap. "You got the wrong kind of milk," I said. "No," he said, "this is the skim milk."

I was horrified. My family was horrified. (I live with five men--pink is not a color much seen in my house.) Who thought putting a pink cap on skim milk was a good idea? Or am I the only person in the world who has definite feeling about pink? Blue is fine--the old skim milk had a blue cap. Blue doesn't scream "boy" to me, but pink? Pink definitely leans to the girlish in my mind, though my youngest son--the fashion maverick of our family--does have a pink dress shirt. I'm sure pink can be very manly...umm, can it?

Rant #2--The pink milk cap appeared in my grocery store because--I think--the grocery changed milk suppliers. Sometimes I think manufacturers change packaging just to mess with my mind. I shop on autopilot. I buy the red box of garbage bags. One day the red box is gone and now there's a green box. Argh! Is this what I like? I don't know.

Rant #3--Do we really need all those different kinds of breakfast cereals, most of which are loaded with sugar? Could we feed the world or cure cancer if we took all the energy and expense devoted to cereal production and redirected it? (Of course with my luck, it would be the one cereal I like that would be discontinued.)

Rant #4--You now need an advanced degree to use coupons. You have to read the fine print--hard for my old eyes. You need two--or more! (Do they think we all live in houses with ample storage space?)--of an item or you need the fancy version or you need to buy it with something else to get the 50 cents off. Can't we just drop prices and can the coupons?

Rant #5--Life is just too complicated. I buy the "happy bear" brand of toilet paper...but now I think there are about 4 different kinds of "happy bear" and 4 different roll sizes. I kid you not. I'm looking at the package right now--there's a chart. A chart to buy tp!! Good grief.

7 comments:

Wendy Roberts said...

Sally, my blood pressure goes up just reading your post LOL. Hate grocery shopping and I hate when they mess with the product labels. What about when they decide to MOVE stuff? They move the tacos and I'm wondering in the wilderness for a month he he.

Sally MacKenzie said...

Exactly, Wendy. I was going to add that to my rant but decided I was out of control. There was a period for a while at my local, not-so-very-large grocery store when even the people who worked there didn't know where anything was.

Ann Christopher said...

Here's my rant: is there no bagger training these days? Because no one seems to know that a) putting a loaf of bread in with a jar of spaghetti sauce is a bad idea; and b) 50 lbs. of groceries WILL NOT FIT in one flimsy plastic bag.

I bag my own these days.

Ann, the grouch

Eve Silver said...

Sally, your rants are in synch with my own grocery shopping angst. Which is why I don't shop. Just the thought of pushing the cart down the aisles, with row after row of products closing in on me... out... I must..get...out... No! No! Not Sugar Crisp, Sugar Pops!!!

So dh and older son do the shopping. It's much, much better that way.

Kristi Cook said...

I'm with you, Ann--I bag my own, too. And a pink cap on skim milk?! It's always light blue! Are they just playing with everyone's head?!

But we have this great thing here in NYC called Fresh Direct. You go online, choose your groceries (and they have everything!), pick a delivery time slot for the following day, and voila! Your groceries arrive in boxes, carried in by the Fresh Direct guys! At first I was wary--I like to choose my own bananas or avocados. But they give you really good quality produce. And they also have ready-made low-cal, healthy meals for one (great for lunch!), baked goods, heat and serve meals. I LOVE Fresh Direct!

Sally MacKenzie said...

Oh, Ann, I hear you. I am NOT happy when my bananas get squished. And a paper bag broke just the other day. At least it was just plastic Gatorade bottles that tumbled all over the driveway. Oh, for the bags of yore that were so much sturdier.

Eve, I'll often send my boys out to shop...but they usually only buy what THEY want. For example, the health conscious kid won't buy Oreos for his junk food brother...okay, I can't totally fault him for that...

Kristi, we have a home delivery service, too. I've been hesistant to try it...maybe I should give it a spin, heh?

Kristi Cook said...

I'd give them a shot--you never know! When they're good, they're great!