Grocery Store Etiquette

I went to the grocery a couple of days ago. It is not one of my favorite things to do, but it's a few days before Christmas and I needed to do all the shopping for the weekend and prepare for the on slaught of company. I like to prepare and cook ahead of time so that I can enjoy the company and the holiday and not be cooking and cleaning up all the time.

Of course being a few days before the holidays the store was crowded. My musing for the day is people's courtesy (or lack of it) in the grocery. It makes me wonder if they drive their car like they drive their shopping cart? i.e. wrong side of the aisle, park in the middle of the aisle, don't notice when someone needs to get by, two shoppers meet to talk in the aisle and block the aisle. I wonder what it would be like if they put horns on the shopping carts? No, I don't want to go there. I usually am very patient and just wait until they come out of their fog or where ever they are lost for them to notice that I need to get by.

And then there's the children hanging all over the carts wanting to play like children want to do. And then the bakery does everyone a favor and gives them a cookie to hype them up on sugar for their trip through the store. I love my children and my grand children. Of course in today's environment, I would be charged with child abuse because when my children were growing up, I believed in making my children mind in public places. But today, I do, however, have a problem with seeing people discipline their children in public places. I commend those who take them outside or to the rest room to reprimand and/or calm them down. I try to get my shopping done during the day while the kiddies are in school. God did me a favor letting me have my children when I was young. Thank you.

And my third musing for Grocery Store Etiquette is the store itself. Why do they put displays in the middle of the aisles? Here is this hugemonous store with all these shelves and on the most narrow aisle is a cardboard display of something that if you barely touch it, it will fall over. Add that to the person driving on the wrong side of the aisle or lost in their own mind. It's like dodging those orange road constuction cones.

I will say that overall my experience was good. I have to give Kroger a pat on the back. Usually when you are trying to find something there is no one to be found to ask. When I was down to my last 3 or 4 (no where to be found) items, I found a Kroger manager standing at the end of an aisle who was there for that very reason. He told me which aisle each item was on and I finished my shopping. The other Thank you I would like to say was to the store manager. He was helping to get the gift wrap table set up and spoke to me. I think he may have recognized me from one of the chamber meetings or from being in his store so much, either way I asked if the cute little singing bear that I picked up in the floral department (a gift for my aunt that I never know what to buy for her) was edligble for gift wrap. It probably wasn't, but he said yes (probably because my cart was overflowing by then) and asked the lady doing the gift wrap to wrap it for me. One less gift to wrap is a good thing.

So for my overall experience - as my grand daughter would say "It's all Good"

Happy Holidays!
The Painted Lady
www.paintedladyenterprises.com