You Just Have To Be Smarter Than A Pumpkin...

A few random thoughts.

First, a cyber-poke-in-the-shins to myself. I have a gazillion topics that I want to tackle in this blog; many of them are quite large and it will be a struggle for me not to use that as an excuse to keep working on drafts and writing and revising or just daydreaming about them and never getting anything "done." One of the points of starting a blog, for me, was to develop some discipline and whack-out a handful of thousand words each week, spread over a few posts. In addition to gaining that discipline, I hope it will help me develop a writing style and, after things start to flow more freely, I'll be able to do more word-smyth-y things with it. But I've been slacking, and it's almost 2 weeks since my last post. Bad, bad, me.

So, the way to keep writing when you either don't have anything of particular import to say, or the things that are important are SO important that you don't just want to brain-dump them onto a blog without "doing them up right", is to just blather on about this or that -- pick a not-particularly-important topic, but one that's topical for you, and write on it. That's why there are so many rant blogs -- "the thing that's really pissing me off today is..." type things.

So here's my minor rant for the day:

It seems that I'm not quite smart enough to go grocery shopping in These Modern Times. Oh, I gave it a fair shot, and I've always thought of myself as a pretty sharp guy but, armed with a detailed list from my wife, I found this morning's trip to the local Safeway frought with peril.

First, I spent about 6 minutes totally mind-boggled, because I didn't realize I was looking at "organic" milk, and I couldn't figure out just when-in-hell milk went to $7 a gallon! I was aghast -- is Exxon making this stuff, now?! Ok, so after I pulled my jaw off the floor, I found the regular-priced milk (still 50% higher than I remember the government-fixed price, but I figure there may be complicated economic factors involved, so ... "ok, whatever.")

Milk: check.

I noticed that my list also contained sour cream, butter & cheese. Now, I don't want to pull any of this "back when I was your age, everything was better" things, but it used to be that milk, butter, sour cream & cheese were all within arm's reach of each other (a) because they all benefit from refrigeration and (b) because they're all the same thing! Of course, back in the day, eggs were nearby, too because, well, milk & eggs somehow were both "home-farm" products that you could maybe imagine the neighbor handing out on weekends (if you live far enough from city-center), and somehow it just made sense.

Well, it turns out that in a modern grocery store (as I presumed this one to be from the track-lighting, and movie-production grade props to make things appear what they were not), cheese is on the "snacks" isle. Ok, you know, I can almost see that -- I mean, cheese is good snack food! Especially if you have things like cheese-sticks/string-cheese. But, oddly enough, the "snacks" isle also contained sour cream, bricks of cheddar and, I guess because they all go in a cooler-unit, jell-o pudding cups. <shrug> Ok, all snack-food, I suppose. But then where are the cheetos? Ah! Cheetos, if I would've given it any thought at all, are obviously beer food! Duh. Ok, I can go along with that one. And once you put Cheetos near the beer, chips of all sorts go there, too, as well as the fig newtons and related products. Ok, I was getting back into the swing of things, here...

But I still had this nagging memory that, back when cheese was with the milk [, butter, etc.], luncheon meat was nearby. I figured that this was because it was easier to install one wall-length cooler unit, and also folks have milk with lunch, too, so it sort of adds up. Then, once you had bologna, salami, sliced roast beeft, etc., the next logical thing was the rest of the meats. Tied together by the web of "goes in a cooler" and "is meat", these things just flowed logically.

I guess that's Old School thinking. The New Way has about 80 different kinds of bologna (how many of you would misspell that word, if it weren't for that cute kid and his Oscar-Mayer song?) and all the other lunch meats (but no sliced cheese!, that's on the "snack" food aisle), then bread -- which kinda makes sense, for making sandwiches, except it blocks your view of the rest of the meats, so you can't stand at the milk-door, look down the row and see meat, then also see things like bacon, steaks and pot roasts; those are hidden by the bread-display.

Oh! And I guess they have to dedicate so much shelf space to every conceivable brand of everything that the aisles are no longer big enough for 2 carts to pass in a straight line. Now, you have to pass about 2/3 of the way then, when the back of my cart is almost up to the back of your cart, we both have to turn slightly to the left (toward the other driver), to pivot the whole affair so that our cart-handles pass each other on a diagonal -- because they don't fit side-by-side! Actually, as assinine as that is, I sort of like the brain-teaser aspect of it...

Anyway, the other reason aisle width is important is because you can't back away from the milk-door far enough to see around the bread display to notice that there's more meat. So you stand there saying "I realize this is Santa Cruz and all, but we can't have abolished steak, for crying out loud...?!", but then you're not really sure. I mean, organic milk is going for $7 a gallon...

By the way, good news: egg nog is out. In gallons. It's cheaper than organic milk, too! Probably better for you. It is if you add enough rum, anyway...

Ok, I finally find the packaged shrimp & sausages, now I need a couple of cans of diced tomatoes. No problem! I remembered seeing "Canned Fruits" aisle-sign a bit back, canned vegetables are probably same aisle or one aisle over, right?

Well, sort-of. Actually, I looked at the canned fruits aisle, and saw no mention on the sign of canned vegetables, so I checked the aisles to either side -- no luck. Then I figured "well, maybe they're being smarty-pants, because tomatoes are a fruit, right?" (even though I'd expect it to be more near canned corn & beans than peaches & pears; but whatever.) So I go check, and the little mid-aisle signs don't have a canned fruits -- but they do have a canned vegetables! <sigh> "Ok, whatever..." So I walk to the far end of the aisle to discover... canned corn & beans. Well, hmmm... (a) where's the canned peaches & pears?! And (b) how about my tomatoes?

Turns out, as any small child could tell you, that tomatoes are "pasta" (small sign), which is "International and Ethnic Foods" (big sign.) You know, given the fact that the shelf-space dedicated to different sizes of chopped, diced, stewed, sauced, pasted and otherwise processed tomatoes is bigger than that dedicated to pastas (although it's close!), you'd think that "canned tomato products" would get its own sign. Nope. Oh well...

Ok, so it's Oct 29, the weekend before Halloween, and we haven't carved a pumpkin, yet. I'm to get two for my wife, and whatever I want to carve. But then I'm thinking... I've been in this store for about 25 minutes, so far, and haven't seen a single pumpkin! And I walked through the produce section twice! (Once on the way to milk, once because I thought maybe canned tomatoes would be near ketchup, which is in condiments which, as everbody knows, is in the produce aisle! (It's probably just the stores I grew up with, but that last bit actually makes sense to me, too. I guess olives & pickles are like produce, sort-of, and mustard & mayo just sort of go near there, too.)

So I go back to produce, thinking that maybe I just didn't see the 8000 pumpkins that were decoratively placed all around the bins of apple, oranges, potatoes, pineapples, etc., because they were so tastefully subdued.

Nope, that wasn't it. Pumpkins, it turns out, are not produce. Ok, Ted, let's think about this... Maybe they're seasonal -- that makes sense, sort-of. I say "sort-of" because coolers & lawn chairs are "seasonal", and get the "on top of the freezers" space when they're "in." Christmas ornaments and Pumpkins are (or should be, in my opinion), scattered throughout the store and, while for sale, make a sort of seaonal decoration for everything else.

Doesn't matter -- pumpkins aren't in the seasonal section, either. Good thing, because I didn't want to try to jiggle a few down from on top of the freezer units! Ok, I'm not that way, so I ask a helpful Safeway employee. "In front of the store", he says, "do you want me to show you?"

Uh, no thanks -- I think I can find the front of the store without much help. And I even recognize that I'm now looking for one of those pallets with the big pumpkin-decor boxes on top full of pumpkins out near where the carts are. Except I came in through the front, and didn't see any such pallets/boxes. Hmmm...

Turns out the pumpkins are in and amongst the carts. So, there's the middle of the store, where nobody parks, with some pumpkins, then 3 huge rows of carts on either side which totally dwarf (and block the view of) the pumpkins, then the doors to the store, in the spot furthest from the pumpkins. Oh, and a sign saying how it's illegal to shoplift. I can't help but wonder how many of those pumpkins are paid for, and if I'm being a chump by bringing mine up to the cashier. That's ok, I can be a chump in that way, if that's what it means...

Anyway... I finally got all the groceries. Wine didn't move (across from liquor, one aisle from beer, easily found by the end-caps of Doritos & related products), nor did roasted chickens (deli) or whatever else was on my list. But those first few items made it seem like this was going to be a serious ordeal!

While I'm gripping about grocery stores, I hate that they make the cashiers read my receipt and tell me to have a good day addressing me by name! (a) While my name isn't that difficult, hardly anyone pronounces it correctly, (b) the make-believe that the cashier is my "corner-grocer/friend" is inappropriate and cheeky and (c) (this is the real killer) to pointedly view my financial documents to pull personal information off of them and then use that information for your own purposes is invasive and rude in the extreme. For anyone whose mother didn't tell them this when they were kids, the proper way to address a stranger -- and this is true in all cases, but especially if you're in the service sector addressing a customer or potential customer -- is "sir" or "madam", as in "thank you, and have a nice day, sir." It's enough to make me want to try to remember to get cash when I go to the grocery store, just so I don't have to watch someone dumpster-dive my name off of my receipt and then use it to get fresh with me.

Day-em! that really pisses me off.

...But, other than that, it's been a pretty good day. The weather is great (70s), the dogs are happy, wife is napping peacefully, and we're going out to a nice dinner, later. (Groceries were for during the week meals.) Plus, I was able to outsmart the pumpkins.

I hope your day is at least that good.

And remember: you just have to be smarter than a pumpkin!