Complaining Just to Complain

If you have to do something, you may as well enjoy it, right? That makes sense to me but regardless of how much I try, I can't like grocery shopping. It's boring. Pick up food, throw it in your cart, pick up food, throw it on the check out conveyor belt, pick up food, throw it back in your cart, wheel cart to your car, pick up food, throw it into your car. How delicious or decadent or how much I'm looking forward to eating the food does not negate the fact that getting the food and buying it is one dull-ass chore. I try to make the process go as smoothly and quickly as possible because I want to get the hell out of there and back home where I can engage in the second most boring chore - putting all the crap I bought away.

I go to the same grocery store week after week and I know where everything I buy is located. I may not be able to tell you where to find the capers and the olives because I never buy them (I'm guessing they're somewhere together) but by golly, I can go in that store and put my hands on tomato paste and bell peppers and butter and tea within moments because I buy them every week. If you get the hell out of my way, I can be in and out with a full cart of groceries in fifteen minutes, tops. Unfortunately no one is getting the hell out of my way.

Men are the worst culprits for slowing me down and the older they are, the worse they are. My husband would protest this and say that he would not be a grocery shopping albatross around my neck but he's wrong. They may vary in degrees of delaying me but they all delay me. Men are the worst for doing things like stopping their cart in the front of an aisle so that no one can get in or out and randomly staring into space. They have no idea about what brand they want to buy and if they're with their wives, they have to strike up an argument every aisle as they debate whether to buy this or that brand. I want to yank from them whatever it is they have in their hands, throw it in the cart and push them the hell out of the way. I mean if these people debate this much over which jar of instant coffee to buy, what must they be like when it comes to a real decision like when to have children or what car to buy?

I understand that people cannot help but bring their kids to the grocery store and of course kids are just going to be kids so I don't blame them for slowing me down but who I do blame are parents who: A: won't keep their kids from running up and down the aisles while they're off on another aisle arguing with each other about that jar of instant coffee and B: let their young kids push the cart. I understand, little one, that you're likely bored - believe me, I get that grocery shopping is boring - and you just want to help but Junior, if you bang that cart into my hip one more time I've gonna have to liven up your day by having you witness me beating your mother to a pulp because it's her that I'm holding responsible for my bruised hip.

God love old folks. Some of them walk slowly and they have trouble reading labels or reaching high shelves. I happily help them if I can. I would never wish to be disrespectful to them because, goodness knows, one day I'll be old as well and I'll be taking extra time to do my shopping. However, can they not do their grocery shopping during the less busy hours? Why do old folks wait until 5pm to shop - the time when folks who are tied up with work responsibilities can do their shopping? And it's not just a few here and there. I was at the grocery store today - I got there at 4:30pm and there were hordes of old folks! What were they doing all day that they had to pick that time to shop?

As you can likely tell I was grocery shopping late this afternoon. And I would have gone earlier in the day myself except that today is my MIL's birthday and between celebrating that and various other appointments today I wasn't able to leave B alone until after 4pm. Normally I just roll a dreaded trip to the store right off my back but since holidays are looming (Good Friday and Easter Sunday and Monday) and shops in Germany are closed on holidays, it was extra annoying. Extra men. Extra kids with lazy parents. Extra old folks. I should get extra credit because I was extra patient.

And I picked up some cheese to go with my whine.