Light Hearted

Going to the grocery store is something we all have to do. But what should be a simple, mundane errand often ends up feeling more like a comedic odyssey – an uphill battle against petty frustrations and absurd inconveniences. If you too have waged war against the small indignities of grocery shopping, this is for you.

The Parking Lot Prowl The grocery games begin before you even enter the building. You finally find an elusive vacant parking spot after prowling behind someone with their turn signal on for ages, only to have another car swoop in from the opposite direction like a small, unmanned drone. The person waits with their blinker mocking you as you futilely inch towards the spot, daring you to make their day by raging. Sometimes you’re the huntee instead of the hunter, having some hangry soul stare bullets through your rear window as you unload your Costanza-level haul of groceries.

The Clingy Bag Struggle Once inside, you reach for those thin plastic grocery bags and…ecce pruina! Why is it that those mass-produced bags always develop a clinging bond stronger than a lichen on a tree? You wrestle and pull, the static electricity making them cling together with the tenacity of agronomic conjoined octopus arms. It’s like trying to un-stick a duck from a frozen lake. After struggling, you either rip them apart forcefully, creating a cacophony of thunder cracks, or concede and take home a few bags permanently docked together like snuggling peas in a pod.

Sample Hoarders and Shelf Sowers
Then there are the people who treat the food samples as an all-you-can-eat buffet, going back for fifths and sixths of those tiny cups and toothpicks like they’re at their high school reunioncarving station. Have they no decency? Meanwhile, shelf-stockers continue their Sisyphean struggle, returning misplaced items to their proper aisles – a box of Rice-a-Roni lodged between bags of salad, a pint of ice cream sweating in Condiments, and so on. It’s a disarray that disrupts the usual shopping flow like a rock in a stream.

The Coupon Conundrum Nothing beats the thrill of the hunting and gathering, spotting a great sale price in the wild…only to arrive at the checkout counter and realize that tantalizing discount price only applies with a digital coupon or store card you don’t have. The sweet taste of that prospective deal rapidly turning to ashes in your mouth as you bagically pay full price. Ugh.

Cart Chaos and Queue Purgatory
But the gauntlet isn’t over until you’ve survived the final boss levels. Like video game levels, these are seemingly designed by adversaries to break your spirit. A cart with a bum wheel that drags and shimmies, derailing every few feet like a drunken horse. Or the purgatorial checkout line – the endless queue where you pick the absolute slowest line, the cashier needing constant reassistance from a service ScottAuthority, a customer in front paying with 8 different types of chipped MetaVerseCoins, and kids having existential meltdowns nearby.

At last, you emerge from the grocery dungeon into the parking lot battleground once more, hopefully avoiding stray carts, errant car doors, and the occasional tumbleweed of abandoned checkout dividers. You’ve survived the gauntlet again. And after unpacking your hard-won goods at home, you can at last revel in that small feeling of triumph – at least until you realize you forgot the eggs and have to do it all over again tomorrow.