Grocery Store Blues

I love grocery shopping.  It wasn't always this way: I used to pitch a fit when my mother would take me grocery shopping, only to be consoled by a box of Barnum's animal crackers.  But now!  Now it's like I'm finally fulfilling my destiny as a stay-at-home soccer mom.  Some people have goals for this semester like making good grades or joining a club; mine is to test out every grocery store in my town.  I recently wrote an article for one of my classes about how much I love grocery shopping.  I have pet names for grocery stores.  It's getting repulsive.

Bet you didn't know this is what heaven looks like.

That being said, there are a few things I absolutely HATE buying:

• Toilet paper.  Seriously, where are the gnomes that steal all my toilet paper hiding?  Luckily, it's one of the easiest things to steal, although sadly my toilet paper holder does not support the industrial-sized rolls I steal from campus.
• Razor blades.  Don't ever look at the price of razors because it is deceiving.  The real investment is in the blades, which cost $20.  Each.  Maybe.  
• Weird spices.  Sometimes I get strange cravings.  Scratch that, there's never a time when I'm not craving some sort of food, like tuna salad or banana waffles or sweet-and-sour rice or chicken and dumplings...I digress.  The worst is when I get so excited about a recipe and I get to the store to buy all the ingredients and I realize it calls for some obscure ground cumin-infused long-grained black pepper spice crap that only comes in a liter-sized bottle.  Get real, you're going to use that one time and it will sit in your pantry until you move out of college, at which time you will pack it up and take it with you to every consecutive location you live in afterward.  How do I know?  LOOK AT MY MOM'S SPICE CABINET.
• Raw meat.  I have a thing against meat, and it's not in the name of ethics or sustainability or animal rights.  It's because I think it's disgusting and I cry when I touch it.  Chicken breasts are slippery and rubbery at the same time, and ground beef is bloody and looks like brains.  Why would I want that when I can eat a box of Cracker Jacks for dinner?



Sausage fest.

• Deodorant.  Here is my only concern: are you or are you not allowed to take the tops off and smell the deodorant? I really want to know because it's an important decision but I'm not sure it's socially acceptable so I do it really sneakily by taking 10 sticks and smelling them at various other aisles, like the cups aisle or the frozen entrees aisle.  Not only does it look weird, it is weird.
• Things with too many choices.  Peanut butter, toothpaste, tortilla chips, birthday cards.  As you stare at the ceiling-high wall of options it seems overwhelming and unreasonable that there would be that many decisions to make, but be warned.  Whatever you choose is the wrong one, and you will only realize it that night when your tortilla chip is unsalted or your toothpaste is grape-flavored.

But on the other hand, one thing I love buying is feminine products.  Give me a box of tampons and I'll find the most awkward adolescent boy working the cash register.  You get out of that place in record time.

I hope you all find time to go grocery shopping this week!  I know I will...at least 5 times.