Adventures in Grocery Shopping

When I was a kid I used to love the grocery store. I wanted everything in it. I wanted to try to cook everything in it. I used to want to go through the produce section and know what every kind of fruit and vegetable was. My favorite aisle was the spices - I wanted to read about every one. I sort of felt like I was this special genius chef child and my mother was lucky to have me.

Holy crap this 14 year old kid is a 5 star chef. He started learning because he hated his mother's cooking. My retroactive jealously gears are in hyper-drive. #Couldabeenme

When I became an adult, my mother told me how after epic 2 hour trips to the grocery store with me she'd sometimes finish buckling me in, shut the minivan door, and fantasize about maybe just not getting back in the car....

I like to think it was because she was too embarrassed to be seen in that lame ass van...

Then I got older and go could to store by myself and it'd be awesome because I could take my time looking at all the awesome ingredients and come up with all kinds of recipe ideas. I just couldn't buy any of it because I was a poor broke undergrad.

Yeah, you're going to need to scale that sirloin and potatoes au gratin down to hotdogs and mac 'n cheese.

And here I am now - a legit grown up, ruler of my own kitchen, able to afford more than Ramen...
and all my love for the grocery store has been crushed to smithereens

It was beautiful while it lasted baby...

Why praytell? I will tell you...children, the highway, and possibly husbands (well, in the singular - nothing about 'Brother Husbands' sounds good).

When we bought the house one of the major advantages (in my mind) was that we were about a mile from the grocery store. Heck, its even on the same street! My favorite grocery store. The best grocery store EVER: HEB

I've lived all over the U.S. I've been to Meier, Publix, Martins, Winn-Dick-Me (erm..Dixie), Albertsons, Kroger, Safeway, and Walmart. I don't care what you say, my grocery store is better than your grocery store. :)

Except there is just one fairly massive problem. There's a huge mother highway you have to cross to get there, there are like zero left turn lanes, people drive like absolute morons and its just one big  clusterf**k.

The above description was confusing, I've added a map...

Discounting shopping time, it takes at least 35 minutes (on a good day) to get there, park, and then leave again, and get home. Home which is 1.5 miles away.

I hate you worst configured parking lot ever

Blerg.

So then there is always the option of sending the hubster to do the grocery shopping. This presents its own mess of problems.

Two Things:

One: My husband doesn't cook. He's taken up grilling lately and is kicking ass, but - let's put it this way - when I first met him he didn't own any mixing bowls and had a pantry full of spam, fun-sized chips, and Shake N Bake. He's coming around, but it's a process.

Hubs only needs three food groups

This means sending him to the grocery not only takes him AGES but generally involves at least 3 clarifying phone calls.

True story: I was making fancy schmancy chicken breasts and sent him to the store. On my list I had prosciutto among other things. Hubs calls me for the fourth time.

Hubs: Hey honey, hope this is a special dinner because wow that prosciutto is crazy expensive.
Me: Yeah, but you know its really tasty, I think you'll like it
Hubs: I'm sure I will, but baby, I'm not sure we can really make this one meal a lot.
Me: I mean, its not that bad (suspicion mounts)....wait, how much did you buy?
Hubs: A pound.

Now, there are some of you (and I'm not judging) who are saying to yourself - I don't get it. So, here's the thing. Prosciutto is a smoked Italian ham. It is delicious. It is about $16/lb. You generally buy it by the slice.

Of all the things I made with prosciutto that week, I admit, it did not occur to me to make a rose...

Two: Firstly, my husband doesn't drink, smoke, or stay out late. He doesn't drink coffee (I'm actually pretty sure this means he isn't a real lawyer).  But he does have one horrible vice. He is a junk food fiend. How he doesn't weigh as much as Caligula's famed pleasure barge is beyond me.

So if he goes to the grocery store, in addition to whatever was on the list, he will come home with chips, beef jerky, and gummy worms. He had to do a bunch of the grocery shopping when I was on bedrest and would buy bags of pork rinds and hide them on the top pantry shelf. I know this because my mom ratted him out. (Its not really that I care that he eats junk food it's just there is a huge history of heart disease in his family and I worry about the sodium. I'm his wife, what can I say? I want the dude to stick around.) But what is worse, MUCH WORSE, is that in order to make me his accomplice he buys ME things I can't say no to.

The bastard.

Oh orange gummy slices, thou shalt be my undoing

So invariably I do most of the grocery shopping. But then there is the last and final of the trifecta of grocery-love-destroying entities: the children.

Baby J is not so bad. He tends to sleep the whole time, but he weighs about 16 lbs independent of the carrier and woof - one more thing to lug around.

How do I not have shredded arms?

But Lulu? Sigh. I love her - she is awesome. She is smart and independent and she loves to cook. And she MOSTLY is pretty good at the store. But eventually...and this has been every single trip for the last 14 trips at least...we get to Tummy Stuffers.

The trip starts well. She wants to cross the groceries off the list. Cool. She wants to ride in the cart...cool. Wait, now she wants back out...ok...still cool. Oh shit! It's cold in here! She demands a jacket (in Texas...in the summer)...well, fair enough.  She helps me pick out produce and then right as we get in our stride...boom!

"Mommy, can we find the Tummy Stuffers?"

We go from this:

Check the orange for soft spots! Great job pumpkin!

to this:

But they are really REALLY awesome and I've never had one ever before!

In about 5 minutes.

What is a Tummy Stuffer? Are you, like I was, ignorant of such a thing? Allow me to enlighten you.

This is a Tummy Stuffer.

It already looks cheap and repellent

Why, pray, is it called a Tummy Stuffer? Because you are apparently supposed to stuff all your crap, toys, dirty laundry, down his throat.

Because what mom doesn't want there to be a secret treasure trove of dirty socks, cookie bits, and interesting 'rocks' they found at the store?

I mean, who came up with this? Do they have children? Do they know children? They are like magpies but without the standards.  Children love to collect and hoard and while I definitely see the appeal of why the young ones would love this - I would be legit terrified to look in one of those things after 6 months in a kid's room.

But seriously...every doggone time. I don't even think HEB has Tummy Stuffers...

So in the end the shopping winds up being this epic 2 1/2 hour ordeal and when I get home I'm just tired and grumpy and I don't even want to cook up all the awesome stuff I just bought and just order Thai instead.

In sum, all I can say is that I am really glad my mom never actually left me in the parking lot. Now when the hubs realizes you narced on him.....well, I still love you mom <3