On the Grocery Store

I can do my shopping for two weeks in less than 20 minutes.

If you can do that, then you don’t need to read the rest of this Thought. (Go outside and play. It’s a beautiful day. Somewhere.) If, however, you are one of those shoppers who wanders through the Safeway with a vacant look in your eyes as you slowly weave serpent-like up and down the aisles, then you need to read this.

As I say, I can do my shopping for two weeks in 20 minutes. If I am out of something, I buy more of it. It is a remarkably simple, yet wholly effective system of shopping. I spend longer in line than I do in the aisles. And I have yet to a) go broke or b) starve. So I would say that I have accomplished the major goals of a trip to the grocery store.

My concern, however, is that my trip to the store could be even shorter if I did not have to contend with the store of the living dead. These are the people who wheel their carts through the store at roughly the speed of snails racing. And it is to these people that I offer these tips:

TIPS FOR SPEEDY SHOPPING

1. If something about a food item requires you to spend more than five minutes prodding it and snorting it like some deranged bloodhound to determine if it has gone bad, then you probably don’t want to purchase it.
2. Unless you live with 200 people, you are never going to need to buy 300 pounds of white rice. Even if it is on sale.
3. If you order meat at the deli and you make them redo the order because you think the meat is too thick and then you go home and put two slices of the thinner meat on your sandwich instead of one, you’re an idiot.
4. The only difference between the Del Monte canned peaches and the Safeway canned peaches is 29 cents.
5. Don’t ask your children if they like a certain food item as if you won’t buy it if they don’t. You are the same person who makes them eat brussels sprouts. They know you don’t care.
6. There is nothing particularly fascinating about hacked up animals. It therefore is not really necessary to “browse” in the meat department. Either you want chicken or you don’t.
7. It is very unlikely that you would buy haddock at a Barnes and Noble. Why, then, would you consider buying encyclopedias at a Safeway?
8. If the bill comes to $10.42 and you spend twenty minutes looking for 42 cents in change, it is completely legal for the person behind you to jam a watermelon down your throat.
9. There is NOTHING “express” about an express line.

Armed with these tips, your next trip to the grocery store can be the best ever. If you have any questions, let me know. I’ll be thumping a cantelope.