As a general rule, I really dislike grocery shopping. Because it isn't just shopping. First, you have to plan your meals for the week, then check on ingredient availability, and finally make time to battle the crowds and do the actual shopping.
I have several techniques I use in order to make the experience as painless as possible, but it is still just one of those things that has to be done. For example, I usually write my grocery list in the order that I walk through the store. This helps to cut down on backtracking. Until recently, I always went to the store on Monday afternoons on my way home from school. Because once I get home, I make a beeline for the pajamas and have no plans of going back out.
The last several weeks have been off because my husband has offered to go with me on Sunday afternoon. Well, when the husband offers to help with grocery shopping, I for one do not turn him down. It just makes the whole experience more pleasant. He typically keeps me laughing for most of the trip with his silly antics.
On one of our recent shopping excursions, he pointed out that the path I take through Wal-Mart is not really the most efficient. After giving it some thought, I realized he was right. So today, as I planned my grocery list, I wrote it with the new path in mind. And lo, it was a complete success. I must have shaved ten minutes off my shopping time. OK, it may not have been that many, but it definitely felt faster.
Occasionally the monotony of shopping is broken by some weird random thing that happens. Today was one of those days. A very disturbing thing happened as I was loading my groceries into my car.
Another car pulls in to the parking place behind mine with music blasting. All I could hear of the lyrics was one word over and over, "Suicide, suicide, suicide." I think it was the chorus of the song.
Just as I was thinking about what a terrible statement the song is about our society, the unthinkable happened. A grown woman and a little girl, about 3 or 4 years old, get out of the car, and I hear the little girl singing, "suicide, suicide, suicide." The woman asks her, "Do you like that song sweety?" What? Did I hear her right?
What in the world is that lady thinking? It made me want to call CPS. Isn't that abuse or neglect or something? Maybe I missed something in the song. Maybe the words just before were, "Don't commit..."? Yeah, maybe that's it. Because surely no one would expose a little girl to that kind of disturbing, destructive, and distinctly adult lyric. Right?
4 comments:
This is probably the same mom that decides it would be a good idea to take the daughter to Wal-Mart at, say, midnight, on a Thursday night. This is probably the same mom that says she can't come to a parent-teacher conference because she's going to Louisiana for the weekend to gamble. This is probably the same mom that convinces her child that they can't afford pencils for school, but will buy twinkle-toes shoes because they were "to die for."
I'm starting to think that people should have to acquire a license to breed. What do you think?
The song you heard is becoming a popular song on the radio (if we are talking about the same one). The artist's whole point is that if this "beautiful girl" leaves him, it will make him "suicidal... suicidal... etc".
Regardless, this illustrates the point that kids pick up just about everything... whether we like it or not.
This is one of my biggest things to try and stress to teens (what music they listen to). Well, other than that... I see grocery shopping as an adventure... we make a list, but never use it wandering around the store until we assume we have everything. That's all...
With 3 kids in tow, grocery shopping is in survival mode. I also try to do it as efficiantly as possible. I need to start writing my list in order also. Thanks for the idea.
You are so much more efficient than we are when we go as a family. Richard, Aleisha, and I often go to the grocery store on Sunday afternoon after eating at Leal's Mexican Restaurant in Muleshoe. However, when I go alone, as I did today, it is quickly through the aisles in the order they are in the store and OUT of THERE!
Frightening what some people do to their children!
Love you!
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