As if grocery shopping wasn’t hard enough, my local store has decided to “remodel.”

Half the time I can’t find anything I’m looking for and the other half, I find it but it’s behind some kind of construction equipment that blocks my way. 

You would think this grocery store would slash prices as compensation for my grief but no. 
Prices are just as high as ever and I still have to check every single yogurt container because they always put the ones that are going to expire in 24 hours at the front of the shelf. 

I hate that.

Grocery shopping is a necessary evil in my opinion.  Even if the grocery store isn’t in the middle of a remodel, the manager is constantly moving the merchandise to different locations.  It’s like I’m on some kind of bizarre scavenger hunt and the prize for winning is to pay for it all.

Some kind of fun, I’ll tell you.

I always start my grocery shopping with the loftiest of goals: to find and buy the nutrients necessary to feed my family of four while making sure it is healthy, tastes good and doesn’t break the bank. 

I’m pretty good in the produce section.  It’s hard to go wrong there but the effort I have to exert to select the unbruised apples, unsoggy lettuce and unsquishy cantaloupe usually leaves me spent. 
And always, always, there is a store employee unpacking something while standing right in front of the very foodstuff I wish to examine.  I’ve tried asking them to move but instead they just scoot over a little bit and begin to chat with me when all I want to do is check off my list and get out of there and I’m usually left so flustered I just grab the closest items, toss them in my cart and excuse myself to the meat department. 

The meat department is also pretty easy to navigate.  There are only so many places to hide the chicken and roasts; not to say they don’t try.  It’s only logical to stash the ground beef between the fish and the ham, right? 

But by the time I finish there, I’m beginning to lag.  I’m tired.  My feet hurt.  My grocery cart has a mind of its own with one wheel spinning in the opposite direction of the other three.  I’m going up and down aisles at a slant and I know I’m going to have to schedule an immediate appointment with my chiropractor. 

What I’m trying to say is that by the time I reach the bakery section; I am weak. 
I genuflect before the cupcakes and donuts and say, “Father forgive me because I am about to sin.”

They say not to go grocery shopping when you are hungry but the very reason I’m at the grocery store is that I am out of food at home.  What am I supposed to eat: a can of tomato sauce and cereal without milk? 

And then, there’s the rogue food. 

Somehow, by the time I reach the checkout lanes and start unloading my cart, I find many items that were not on my list.  Cookies, Doritos and ice cream bars have apparently flung themselves into my cart when I was not looking. 

I don’t know how this happens but I really hope the surveillance cameras capture this action. 

Well, by the time I find this contraband in my cart, I have already unloaded have of my stuff and I can’t just stop and return those things, can I? 
It would be discourteous and I so hate to be rude. 
I really have no choice but to buy everything in my cart at that point.

See, that’s why skinny people are usually so cranky.  They move their carts through the store so fast (some even jog) that the rogue food cannot fling itself properly into their carts at that speed. 
I know how irritable I get when I miss snack time so it only stands to reason that to be a happy and polite grocery shopper, one must proceed at the proper pace. 

After I have made the mad dash from the store to my home (wouldn’t want the ice cream scamps to melt,) I have to lug each and every bag into the house, unpack everything including the broken eggs and squished bread and put everything away.
I’m usually left at the point of tears after this much anguish.

However, there is hope.

Remember the rogue cookies?