grocery store

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  • 04 Sep

    Can I Ask an Awkwardly Timed Question?

    I can’t believe I missed a perfect opportunity today to ask a pointless, yet somehow interesting question.

    I was at Harris Teeter procuring a delightful amount of food, which happened to include some milk. At nearly every grocery checkout situation I’ve had in the past two years–including a wide range of chains in both Virginia and Florida–the store employee has asked if I wanted my milk in a bag.

    The answer is always a quick “Yes” or “Yeah that would be fine.”

    Immediately after that answer today, I thought of a question I didn’t ask.

    “Do people normally get their milk in a bag?”

    I mean, I was legitimately curious but for some reason didn’t strike at the opportunity. I think I was slightly distracted trying to think of who the girl at the register looks like. She reminded me of someone, but for the life of my I couldn’t figure it out.

    And by the time I snapped out of that side project, it was too late. Maybe if there was nobody behind me in line, or there were more than two items left to be scanned I could have tried to relaunch the topic. But there was an old couple who looked like they wouldn’t appreciate me slowing things down with my line of questioning. So I let it go.

    As I walked out of the store I couldn’t help but think I let a golden opportunity pass. I’ll surely go back to the grocery store, and there’s a solid chance the question comes up again. But will I have the same girl, who in my mind at least seemed like she would provide an excellent answer?

    This Harris Teeter is located directly next to an Office Depot. I mention this because after walking into HT and grabbing a cart, a woman came in the door right behind me. She already had a cart. A big red one. From Office Depot.

    She walked right past the HT employee who seemed to be on cart duty. The guy didn’t even seem the least bit interested that a bright red cart from a neighboring store was infiltrating his domain.

    Which brings to mind another burning question from that trip that went un-asked. Does that happen often? Not even necessarily at that particular store, but do people often use carts from nearby stores for their shopping?

    In my illustrious retail career, I only worked one place that had carts. They were very non-descript, as were the ones from neighboring Kohl’s. I probably wouldn’t have noticed if it happened every day.

    But you can’t miss a bright red Office Depot cart in Harris Teeter. Maybe the challenge is to bring the most outlandishly inappropriate cart into a store.

    By cjhannas grocery store Uncategorized
  • 27 Mar

    Giant is Spying, and Other Musings

    I’m pretty sure Giant Food is spying on me.

    Today I went to load up on a bunch of food for the coming weeks. I usually eat pretty much the same stuff, mainly hot dogs and pasta. So today I had both of those at the top of the list to replenish the bare cabinets that occupy my territory in the kitchen.

    I grab my $1 hot dogs. Check. Next is an immediate left turn into the pasta isle, where I spot my brand of pasta on sale for 50 cents a box. That’s pretty sweet in my book.

    After picking up a few other choice items, including the beyond-fantastic Propel water, I headed to the bread isle for some hot dog buns. Now on the list I had written “2” next to this item. You see, the hot dogs I get come in packs of 10, thus requiring me to grab more buns than dogs to eventually even things out. Much to my surprise, the Giant brand hot dog buns in packs of 8 were nowhere to be seen. Instead, a new item, the Giant brand 12-pack appeared in their place. My life is now complete. One package now satisfies my need for “get more than 8” hot dog buns.

    Giant must be paying special attention to my purchases and food needs. There is no other explanation for the windfall that befell me today.

    In other news, I managed to get through the last two weeks without running afoul of the U.S. Capitol Police. So I’ve got that going for me. I’m also officially addicted to those little peppermint, um, mints like you snag leaving a restaurant. My mom gave me a bag last time I was home, and they are now dangerously within arms-reach on my desk. I hope you can’t OD on them.

    And I’ve seen the site statistics, and by my calculations you haven’t been to the new world of Ert. Don’t know what Ert is? HA. Got you again. Go to the site, learn, laugh, jump onto the message board and chat away with some cool kids like me. Still have questions? Hit the “contact” button, and I’ll get the message and respond at my earliest convenience…or something like that…

    By cjhannas food grocery store hot dogs Uncategorized
  • 05 Dec

    Yes I’m At 123 Box Rd, Box, VA

    The clock is ticking. Pretty soon everyone will be out of money. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

    Now I don’t have a degree in economics, hell I haven’t even taken a class that would even come close. But I have taken math, and according to math, money is about to disappear at a faster rate than ever.

    So for anyone who doesn’t get a Christmas present from me this year, don’t despair, I’m just looking out for No. 1. Or just go blame the people at Giant food and modern medicine, it’s all their fault.

    The other day I went to the grocery store to replenish my stay-alive necessities like pasta, hot dogs and oatmeal. Being a grad student working two part-time jobs, this is the kind of expedition I like to make as frugal as possible. So instead of laying out $3 for eight hot dogs from the fine people at Ball Park or Oscar Mayer, I rock the $0.99 for 10 dogs from Bar S. That is, I used to do that.

    Apparently Rep. Deborah Pryce (R-Ohio) was using some fuzzy math when she said we are in “one of the strongest economies this country has ever seen.” Excuse me, Madamme Representative, the price of my hot dogs skyrocketed 59 percent this week. That’s a problem for low-income Americans, especially as we head into the home stretch of the holiday season. My new monthly budget has to take that increase into account, meaning I may no longer have a place to cook those hot dogs when I have to move out of my apartment and into a cardboard box.

    Now I know you may be thinking, “Gee, this kid is complaining about the price of hot dogs, but really how many would he have to eat in order to be in such dire financial straits?” The answer? A lot. I’m no Kobayashi, but I assure you that I do come somewhat close to his monthly hot dog intake, I just tend to savor them a bit more on the way down.

    But in case outrageous hot dog prices don’t convince you that money as we know it is no more, how about health care? Back in the day, things like Medicare and Social Security were easier for the government to handle since people died at much younger ages. But now we are in a bit of trouble. People are living longer than ever, which means supporting them will take cash from other programs. Of course we could always just use the disappearance of money as a chance to just pretend we have some…not like we’ve ever done that before.

    If you’re rather well-off, or plan to hit the lottery before becoming ripe, you might not think such a financial problem is, well, a problem. But those with a little less of a cash cow are in a little more of a jam. On a good day in my box, I might feel the urge to head down to the public library and download some sort of government assistance form, whip out a pen and fill it out.

    Then of course I have to mail the form to the government. (Let’s say that even if there is an electronic submission option, my time in the box has left me wary of identity theft). In order to mail something in the United States, you need a stamp from the postal service. But after climbing out of $11 billion in debt during the last 35 years, they feel the need to go further and put $3 billion in escrow. Which means the price of stamps will go up more than 5 percent in early January. Guess I better plan on getting a smaller box.

    -This blog brought to you by Procrastination and the letter Y.

    By cjhannas grocery store hot dogs mail Uncategorized
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