I'm Lindsay Ferrier, a Nashville writer with a passion for family travel, exploring Tennessee, and raising kids without losing my mind in the process. This is where I share my discoveries, along with occasional deep thoughts, pop culture tangents and a sprinkling of snark. Want to get in touch? Use the CONTACT form at the top of the page.
September 10, 2005
I’ve written about the behind-the-wheel bitches of suburbia. The truth is, that’s not me. I’m pretty calm behind the wheel, but fret not, ladies, I am no saint. There is one place that turns me from a mild-mannered-mommy into a housewife-from-hell…. The Supermarket.
I hate going to the supermarket, yet I can’t avoid its siren call. Diet Coke 12-packs are $2.99? Lemme’ at ’em. Buy one get one free Great Lash Mascara? I am sooo there. Not to mention the fact that I have three kids, a husband and a dog who claim they need food, a lotta food, to survive.
Everything would be just fine if I could make like Paris Hilton and shut the place down for my sole shopping pleasure. But the last time I made that request, the customer service representative looked at me as if I had asked her where I could find the latest issue of Playgirl.
So I shop right alongside the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. I begin my food-finding venture with every intention of being nice, polite, even gracious. But it’s not long before the supermarket shrew in me takes over.
Maybe it’s that I can’t go in through the exit door, even though it’s way closer to the liquor section, the only part of the grocery store that appeals to me. Maybe it’s that my cart always seems to have one bum wheel that makes a buggy-shaking WHHUUUUMMMP with every rotation, turning heads on each aisle and making me regret my decision not to change out of the spit-up-stained t-shirt I’ve had on since early that morning. Maybe it’s that the baby aisle is a friggin’ landmine, because a mom drops a glass baby food jar there (and often, that mom is me) about every five minutes.
But being a mother, I’m used to snags and inefficiencies. I can handle these things on their own. Combine them with other shoppers, though, and we’ve got a problem.
I treat these shoppers as a human obstacle course. Get your cart successfully through the maze as quickly as possible and win a tiny shred of sanity that you can cling to for the rest of the day. Or at least you’ll get home in time to catch the end of the Dr. Phil episode about that woman who’s addicted to plastic surgery.
By far, the biggest hurdles on the course are the new kiddie carts my grocery now offers to appeal to its VIP customers- the suburban mamas. The carts are designed to look like a race car and can hold up to three small children in their roomy front seats. Just try and maneuver your normal-sized cart around one of these monstrosities. It’s virtually impossible, particularly since most mamas will give you a dirty look rather than moving their cart to the side when you try to squeeze by. As it’s best not to rumble with another mama, I generally maintain a polite facade, then stick out my tongue and cross my eyes at the kids when mom turns back to the Fruity Pebbles. Difficulty: 9.5. Artistic Merit: 8.2.
Assuming you make it past the kiddie carts, you’re bound to be stalled by a Clueless Male. He can usually be found standing in front of the steaks, staring blankly, much in the same way your husband stands in front of the refrigerator as though mindpower alone will cause that last beer to leap out from its hiding place behind the wilted head of lettuce. You see where I’m going with this.
If you’re polite, you’ll wait 5, 10, 30 seconds for Clueless Male to make up his mind that he’s better off in the frozen dinner department and amble off. If you’re a supermarket shrew, you’ll rouse him with a loud “Ex-cyyyuse me!” Then you’ll reach over him for your top round steak, heave a loud sigh and flounce back to your cart. Difficulty: 4.2. Artistic Merit: 7.0
And now let’s just take a quick pit stop in order to give our Thieving Senior Citizen friend a dishonorable mention. I’m all about free food samples and I know that for some seniors, sample-heavy supermarkets = a nice lunch out. But Old-Man-with-the-Red-Sweater, why do I see you dipping into the free cookie jar every freakin’ time I’m buying groceries? Can you not read the big sign overhead that says Kids Klub? Hello?! Were the pigs in blankets being offered on aisle seven just not enough for you? Were the lemon pound cake bites in the bakery a little stale? Huh? Keep your stinkin’ hands out of the Kids Klub cookie jar, n’kay?
Onward. You know her. You love her. Her name’s Erleen and she slices your deli meat. That is, after she asks you all about the baby, searches five minutes for the honey ham before realizing it’s on top of the counter right in front of her, goes in the back for a new box of latex gloves, futzes with the gigantic and frightening deli-meat-cutting-device, and punches about 50 different combinations of buttons on the electronic scale before declaring it “broke”. You can’t be mean to her- but you sure can think up a few choice synonyms for “Erleen” when you get home and find she’s cut the ham so thick that your kids refuse to eat it. Difficulty: 7.5. Artistic Merit: 5.2
The next road block is known far and wide as the milk maid. Bonus points if you can remember the name of the film that coined this term. I can’t. Milk maids fastidiously search through each and every half gallon of milk until they find the one with the latest sell-by date. Meanwhile, the milk maid’s cart is blocking the doors of every milk refrigerator from skim to acidopholus (WTF is that stuff, anyway? Not very catchy, is it? “Acidopholus, it does a body good.” “Got Acidopholus?” “The Acidopholusy Way”. It’s getting late. Clearly.). At this point, my inner shrew is ready to ram that cart with my own. Instead, I do something equally horrifying. I touch the cart, even though it doesn’t belong to me. I shove it out of the way, open purse and all. And I get the most deliciously appalled, open-mouthed, how-dare-you staredowns when I do that. Insert evil laugh here. Difficulty: 6.8. Artistic merit: 9.0
At last, the end is in sight. But there are three other carts ahead of you in the checkout line. And wouldn’t you know it, you picked the line with the infamous bagger-who-never-should’ve-been-promoted-to-cashier-for-very-obvious-reasons-which-I-won’t-even-get-into-here. Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn. This guy’s line looks shorter than the others, but he is so painfully slow that each checkout takes twice as long. Plus, you’ve once again demonstrated your extraordinary ability to always get behind the person who’s buying tax-free groceries for a Head Start daycamp, requiring the cashier to scratch his head in confusion for a good 30 seconds before calling in a manager who painstakingly records the entire transaction in a big black book while your Death by Chocolate ice cream slowly melts on the conveyor belt.
Finally, it’s your turn. A total shrew would take revenge on the Clueless Male and Suburban Mama behind her by waiting until every item is scanned before slapping her forehead, telling the cashier, “I’ll be right back!” and returning five minutes later with frozen artichoke hearts. But I just don’t have the black heart to take it quite that far. So I settle for whipping out coupons, lots and lots of coupons, coupons that flutter everywhere and take precious seconds to be located and retrieved, coupons so tattered that they require the cashier to squint at the small print and shake his head. To my rear, I hear the angry foot stamp of a Milk Maid. Difficulty: 8.2. Artistic merit: 9.0.
Sometimes I get a trophy (in the form of a “$5.00 off your next order!” coupon that’s occasionally spat out along with my receipt). More often, I get a raging headache and an unwanted workout transferring Capri Suns and bottled waters in and out of the trunk of my car.
It these supermarkets really wanted to win the loyalty of their customers, they’d make their prizes a little more fabulous. How about setting up a dunking machine containing the angry butcher? For every $100 you spend, you get a ball to hurl at him. Or they could offer a sixty-second free shopping spree through the cosmetics aisle. Even drawing a finish line at the exit and putting up a counter clock over the door would help. Confetti and balloons would drop each time new record holders left the building. I could really get into that…
Alas. Until American moms demand their rights as consumers, I’m afraid my utopian ideals will never be achieved. Remember, ladies. Change starts with you. It’s time for us to band together and make our voices heard. Do I have any volunteers? Anyone? Uh… anyone? hello?
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>Just you wait, it’s gonna get worse with the gas price hike. now that prices go up and peole have to truck things companies are going to raise the prices on EVERYTHING because they “have to compensate for the gasoline that it took to ship the products.” Just you wait until you see the first cat fight over a 4 dollar 6 pack of coke!! Just you wait!
>Here via Michele’s!How I would long for Liquor to be sold at the supermarkets here in Ontario…that would at least make it worthwhile going to the store.I hate grocery shopping with a white-hot hatred, and your entry summed it up perfectly!
>If they gave out samples of merlot instead of turkey bacon, we would all be smiling a little more 🙂
>I am usually in a fairly decent mood when I enter the supermarket. By the time I leave I’m ready to shoot someone. How about those people who like to visit with their friends RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE AISLE and only move when you say “excuse me???!!!” AND, then they look at you as if you are some evil bitch set out to destroy their good time. (Sometimes I actually take a Zanax before I go to the store. Shhh…don’t tell anyone!)
>I know my last comment I added a ‘hey you forgot this one’ thang, and I’m doing it again, hope ya don’t hate it when people that:What about when you see the same person down each aisle? Like they’re heading east-west and you’re going west-east and you keep passing them? And what bugs me even more is when you know them. I mean how many times can you say: good ta see ya, haven’t seen ya since. . . well aisle 4′ before it’s gets old and moldy? C’mon nowOh and people that shop on cellphones! I mean J3sus! and they talk so frekking loud, about the boringest crap, like say. . . what they’re buying at the grocery store.
>I think the moms should get the free cookie when entering the store, not the kids. Or wait…make that a shot of something strong!If I had the room here, I’d relay a hilarious story my husband gave me tonight about his experiences at the store. Let me just say this–Walmart at night, 20 items or less, and person shopping WHILE they were in the checkout in front of him…ha!
>Um, am I still lumped in with the milk maids if I’m the mom grabbing 6 gallons of the stuff and unwittingly blocking the skim milk? And don’t you hate those moms who park their carts so you can get by, but then they stand there staring at all of the soups, and will not move even though they see you?
>Oh my gosh. You guys are making my blood pressure rise just reading your comments. For one thing- Yes, yes, wine samples PLEASE. We deserve it. Brilliant idea, MommaK.Several people have mentioned the shoppers who won’t move until you say “Excuse me”, usually several times and usually passive-aggressively-slowwwwly. UGH.And that’s hilarious, RA. Yes, I hate continually running into the same person. I’ll generally change my shopping route just to avoid that scenario- and I’ve seen others do the same to avoid continually running into ME! Ha! It’s just kind of awkward, y’know?Steph, the beauty of having a toddler is that I get to eat at least half the cookie if I get one for her. Yum yum…Thank God I’m not the only one who feels this way.
>I love it! Just imagine how I feel. I work there all day and THEN I have to shop! Here via Michele. I am going to share this with my coworkers. We need a laugh. We work with the public!
>I just can’t comment. I’m the mum who at least every six weeks falls into the parental INSANITY of ‘just dropping into the supermarket to pick up a couple of things with the kids’. All three of them. Combined age of 13.And I never, ever, learn.Let me apologise now, in advance, and in perpetuity. I am SO sorry I’ve turned into THAT mother…
>Hi there, I followed you over from agog and aghast. So I guess via micheles. The supermarket makes me crazy so I either go at insane hours or just order online and go pick it up. I think its worse to take my husband than my six year old. He’s the one that throws about $374681734 worth of uneeded stuff in the cart. Nice blog, I will be back !
>Usually I like grocery shopping just fine…but somehow you have distilled everything I hate about it in this one post.And now. I don’t like it anymore.
>Wait, you have liquor in the grocery store? Why not just crack one open and stagger around cussing at the other mama’s? I bet they’d part the waters seeing you do that. Heh heh.
>I like to go with Pat and with a list. At Price Chopper, we have alittle fresh bread snack, then head for the seafood department for a very large lobster. Then we scare our way to the front of the line with our new “live pet.” At Hannaford, we sneak some cheese from the salad bar and Pat usually gets a deli ticket and waits for lunch stuff while I load up on fruit for the week. We reassemble and then go for vegetables and fish or meat together, followed by eggs, milk, paper stuff, beer, etc. We try and stay under 15 items so we can check out fast. Our kids are out of the house, so its easier to shop via the “daily” market routine and together.Thanks for your observations here. I recognize some and will endeavor not to become some others.;-)
>Awww, shoot. I just ruined supermarket shopping for Blackbird. I feel like a clod.
>I think you’ve summed up the supermarket personalities as well as the soccer parent ones! LOLYou forgot to mention how we endure all of this with that supermarket music in the background. You know, the cheesy looped music that either makes you all sad and weepy (MommaK has blogged about this before, I think), especially if your PMSing and emotional, or makes you want to claw someone’s eyes out because that elevator-music cover of that old forgotten Carpenters’ song is so incredibly horrible it hurts.And Praise the Great Grape-stomper in the sky for the fact that we have liquor in our supermarkets, yes.
>Don’t know if you’ll ever see this or not, since this post is from last year, but I believe the movie you’re referencing here is Clerks. The milk stuff and all that.If I’m ever shopping in Bellevue I’ll make sure to look out for you!