Grocery Shopping

I am not a big fan of shopping and my family knows it. I don’t have the patience to walk into a store without a list in hand or at least knowing exactly what I want. I don’t enjoy grocery shopping and at one time I remember shopping once a month (beside milk and bread). I would fill up 2-3 carts of food and literally spend 300.00 in a single trip (and this is when groceries were a might bit cheaper). We would go weeks with plenty of food and as it dwindled, I would get very creative with my cooking so that I would not have to go. I don’t enjoy clothes shopping either…what a bore! If I need a pair of jeans…grab a size 12 standard, shirt…size large, just grab and go…shoes 8 ½ wide, I’m sure they will fit. I usually do not bother taking clothes back…I’m sure they will fit someone or I would rather drop them off at Goodwill. I recall when the children were younger I would wait until they went to school before I would trek out on my venture of getting the best deals at very low prices. Another good thing about only grocery shopping once a month is that I usually had coupons galore, and if and if I could I would wait and use them on double coupon days…life was good.

One day I decided that I would go to the store and save a bundle at Aldi’s (a new store that advertised great prices)! Aldi’s is a great place to save BIG money especially if you had coupons. I remember it being a beautiful fall day, not a cloud in the sky. I decided that all of the kids and I would go grocery and sweet shopping at the Wonder store. When I say all of the kids I mean ALL of the kids, Zach, Jesse, Jodi, Logan, Cassie, Carly and Angel (the last three kids I babysat for). We piled into the Suburban and were on our way!  We went to the Wonder store and bought all kinds of tasty treats, bread, rolls and biscuits. I opened up some Nutty bars and handed each child their treat with a bottle of water to wash it down wish, so that they would not be starving when we reached the store, and we were off to Aldi’s! When I reached our destination in Avon, I had three hundred dollars, a line of kids to push carts and a plan! I would go in and have four of the big kids push carts; we would fill them to the brim and zip in zip out we would be home within an hour. I am a very fast shopper! We pull into the parking lot (we actually got front row), piled out of the Suburban and searched for carts. After looking around for a moment we saw them in a cart corral, however you had to lease the use of one for a quarter! Are you kidding me? I am not one who carries change lying around; I have children…not change.

 Let me explain to you how this works if you do not have children. Children require a lot of money to raise properly, most of this money comes from change. An ice cream truck comes down the road, the children run to the change jar; the child loses a tooth and Walla! There is change waiting for them the next morning under their pillow, there is a bubble gum machine in every grocery store, gas station and video store…and this requires quarters times four or seven kids. At the end of the day if an adult is fortunate enough to have any change left, this goes into their college fund or better yet known as the change jar. When my children remind me of how I should pay for their college years, all I really need to remind them of when they ate their tuition in ice cream bars and bubble gum!

Anyway I digress…I do not have change; what I have is seven chocolate covered crabby kids, three hundred dollars and not a quarter to my name! I search my purse, pockets (of all of us), my car and my console. Nope…nada…nothing. Carly has a stomach ache, Angel and Jodi are playing tug of war with Logan, Zach has to pee and I have a headache! We scramble back in to the Suburban with me muttering *insert bad expletives* about Aldi’s and what they can do with their carts, food and coupon deals and go home vowing never to enter an Aldi’s ever again! It was another week of creative cooking before I would venture out into the world to go grocery shopping (anyone remember eating octopus on a bed of seaweed?) .