SAA Ep. #32 Shopping for Awkwardness

There are two places that I normally shop for all my groceries.  Wal-mart and Target.  Both of them Super.  Now, it's true that I will occasionally visit a Lowe's for a half gallon of milk or something, but I generally stick to the Super Target and Super Wal-mart--because they're Super!

Wait.  Let me pause to explain something for anyone who doesn't live where I live, because the last sentence of my first paragraph might not make too much sense.  When I first moved here, someone told me they were going to Lowe's to get some milk.  I was like, "Since when do home improvement stores sell milk?  Are you drinking white paint without your knowledge?"  See, everywhere else I've lived, Lowe's has been a home improvement store.  I think my dad used to have an affair with that store...but that's neither here nor there.

The thing is, where I live now, there are places known as "Lowe's Foods."  There are lots of them.  In fact, there are at least two Lowe's Foods on the way home from two of my jobs.  I literally cannot drive home from work without passing at least two of these grocery stores...and I live within 20 minutes of where I work.  So sometimes it's just more convenient for me to run into a Lowe's to get a half gallon of paint...or milk...or whatever.  We also have a Lowe's home improvement store, which has added to all of the confusion--especially when I try to give people directions. 

I'm not very good at giving people directions.

Well, there are several other places where I can buy groceries in this area.  There are Food Lions and Aldis and Krogers, oh my!  There's also this really uber expensive grocery store that caters to those I like to refer to as "Grocery Snobs."  This grocery store is called Harris Teeter.  I've probably only set foot inside a Harris Teeter like...twice, even though there are THREE Harris Teeters within a five minute drive from where I live.

One of my excursions to Harris Teeter was this week. They've got this triple coupon thing going on all week.  I was thinking...hmm.  I have coupons.  Hmm.  I could have them tripled.  Hmm.  I could save money like those "Coupon Snobs." 

Turns out, I didn't do my research.  They're only offering that coupon tripling thing on coupons with a face value of 99 cents.  The vast majority of my coupons were for $1.00.  That 1 freakin' cent is what got me.  The few coupons I did have for under $1.00 were already expired...because I fail at shopping. 

Add to this disaster was the fact that Harris Teeter is just like the Taj Mahal of grocery stores.  I don't belong in the Taj Mahal of grocery stores.  I belong at Wal-mart.  I seriously wandered aimlessly around the aisles like a lost puppy.  See, I can navigate Wal-mart like a pro.  I'm almost as good at finding my way around Target (I just get confused because they don't have an official craft section, so what's a girl to do when she NEEDS glitter glue?!).  But at Harris Teeter, I kept having to look at those little "aisle guides" like an amateur.  I never could find the peanut butter...not that I needed it, but that store was totally freaking me out, and peanut butter felt safe.

And the "Grocery Snobs" and "Coupon Snobs"??  They knew it.  They could smell my newbie-ness.  They knew I didn't belong there.  They were all getting their 99 cents or less coupons tripled, or else they were so rich they didn't have to care about saving money.  I'll bet they even knew where the peanut butter was...if a store that hoity-toity even has peanut butter...which I'm starting to doubt.

Okay, so apparently they do.  But it's that ostentatious peanut butter...the organic kind...with organic Valencia peanuts.

CURSE YOU HARRIS TEETER! 
YOU MOCK ME WITH YOUR OSTENTATIOUS PEANUT BUTTER! 

I found out they do have pickles, and they weren't THAT expensive.  And I thought, eh, what the heck?  I could go for some pickles.  Then one way or another, I mysteriously found myself in the ice cream aisle (funny how that ALWAYS seems to happen). 

I figured that ice cream at Harris Teeter would cost me a literal arm and leg, which might mean it was the only ice cream in the world that would actually help me LOSE weight.  But to my surprise, the Harris Teeter "brand" non-ostentatious ice cream was only about $2.50.  $2.50 for ice cream is a good deal.  And it was even "light" ice cream, so I bought some.

Then came time to pay for my stuff.  This was confusing to me.  I didn't have a cart; I was carrying a basket.  And I didn't see anywhere to put said basket.  Even the checkout lanes mocked me.  So I just awkwardly stood in line holding my basket, letting the "Grocery Snobs" in line ahead of me think their nasty nasty thoughts about me. 

Fortunately, I was saved by a dashing cashier who informed me that his line was empty.  I must not have noticed because the social awkwardness was making me hyperventilate.  The cashier took my basket from me so I didn't have to worry about it.  I appreciated that.

He also noted that I didn't have a VIC card (one of those cards that grocery stores give out to make you think you're saving money, when all along the stuff you're buying is cheaper at Wal-mart WITHOUT any kind of special card) and offered to just give me the VIC card discount on the stuff anyway.  Then he noticed what I was buying.

Pickles.
And.
Ice Cream.

Dude totally thought I was pregnant.

Some people have mad coupon skills.  I am not one of them.  From now on, I'm sticking with what I know.  Wal-mart and Target.

Super.

SAA Ep.# 23: Being Bored in Public

Peanut butter kills people.

It's not a laughing matter at all. I work with kids. I know TONS of kids with peanut allergies severe enough to kill them. I know adults with the same problem. I'm related to adults who can't eat peanuts without needing immediate medical attention.

Me? Oh, I eat peanut butter on a weekly basis. Sometimes, if I've run out of money for groceries, I eat peanut butter on a daily basis. I'm quite fond of peanut butter. It's probably one of my favorite foods. You can combine it with chocolate. You can combine it with celery and raisins. You can put it in a sandwich or a cookie or a pie or cake...even the icing. My great grandmother even put it in ice cream--which was amazing. It works equally well with jelly, jam, bananas, AND honey. You can eat it with a spoon. George Washington Carver was a genius. Peanut Butter is like one of the most amazing and versatile foods in the world.

And it kills people.

In The DiVinci Code (which I only read because everyone said it was heresy), there was actually a dude murdered by peanut. Peanuts, in their raw, roasted, boiled, and butter form, are deadly. Like if you ever found a colony of people with peanut allergies and forced them to eat peanut butter, you would have peanuts as weapons of mass destruction. Have you ever just stopped to consider this--how a food that millions of people eat EVERY DAY means SUDDEN DEATH for other people?

I have. I have pondered it at length. It's one of the many things I ponder when I am faced with being bored in public.

Public boredom happens when:

1) I am in a meeting, class, lecture, sermon, etc. and am uninterested in the topic of said meeting, class, lecture, sermon, etc.

2) When I'm waiting for something/someone and don't have anything to do while I'm waiting.

3) When I'm at a party or other social event and there's nothing to do/no one to talk with...and it's too soon to leave without being rude.

There are a variety of ways to cope with being bored in public. In high school, when I had nothing to do and didn't have any friends (aww), I'd sit all by myself and write the worst poetry ever written. I'd also sit around and ponder the potential lethality of peanut butter. I was emo before emo was cool...or before it even existed.

Being a writer has made it easy for me to have things to do when bored in public, provided I have a notebook, post-it note, clean napkin, used napkin, old receipt, program/bulletin to write on. In class, in meetings...in...church ... I've often become bored with whatever the speaker is saying, and I've used the time to work on writing ideas or poetry. I will say that USUALLY when I become bored in sermons, I TRY to write poetry or ideas that actually have to do with the sermon topic. ...Don't judge me...

I've also made a habit of staring at the carpet, at the chair in front of me, at the back of the person's head in front of me, at the ceiling...you know, whatever there is to look at. Then, I'd let my mind wander, though it really is too small to be outside by itself...

In middle school, the carpet in the auditorium where I waited for my bus had this really interesting pattern. This was back in the early 90s when those Magic Eye pictures were just so gosh-darn popular. I remember staring at the carpet trying to make magic eye pictures come out. While there were no pictures, you'd be surprised what you can make look 3-D by crossing your eyes in just the right way. I always had a gift, a GIFT, I tell you, for seeing those Magic Eye pictures. Unfortunately, like most of my gifts, it is completely useless.

The sanctuary...I mean...WORSHIP CENTER of the church I attended as a child has THE EXACT SAME kind of chandeliers as the Worship Center of the church I attend now. I know this because I spent a large portion of my childhood staring at the church's chandeliers. I stared at them, wondering why there were these little circular brass loops at the bottom of them. Was that just in case we decided to host a team of acrobats? I mean, I'm sure they could have lots of fun swinging from the little loops--the chandeliers would have made AWESOME trapezes.

I also imagined what would happen if these chandeliers ever fell from the ceiling. Morbid? Yes...but entertaining. I wondered if the deacons would all leap up and form a human barrier, protecting the other people from the falling lamps of death. Would they start shouting, "Everybody out! Pastors wives and children first!" Or would it be a free-for-all? Every man for himself! Seriously, I had like an elaborate escape plan all worked out in my mind, just in case the chandeliers started falling. Then I got Spiritual and started planning how I'd put the welfare of others before myself--I started planning how I would place myself under the falling chandeliers before they took out the youth minister. Of course, then, I had to be on constant alert, just in case one of the chandeliers began to fall.

They never did...but it could happen. You never know. ...WATCH THE CHANDELIERS...

If you're not as creative...or morbid...as I am, there's always the old standby. Play with your cell phone. It's not exactly ethical, but cell phones have opened whole new opportunities in public boredom entertainment. You can pretend to text someone. You can actually text someone. This is especially helpful if you're in a social situation (like a bad party) that involves boredom. If you're texting, then you don't have to make small talk. As you may have guessed, I've been in this situation more than once...

If you don't want to pretend to text, you can play with the phone calculator. Seriously...do you know how many things you can calculate? You can calculate how many minutes you've been alive. You can calculate how much sleep you've had in the past week. You can calculate the number of ways you can use a calculator to alleviate social boredom! The possibilities are nearly endless.

You can even calculate how long it will take to kill someone with peanut butter....