The Mundling Zone

Thoughts, rants, and raves from the desk of Michelle Mundling

Sunday, November 14, 2004

Sunday Morning Shopping

Woke up before the alarm clock this morning. Figures. I wake up bright-eyed early on weekend mornings, but I'll be bleary-eyed on the weekday mornings when my alarm clock beckons my arousal out of bed. At this point, my mind is on auto pilot, and don't mess with the controls by asking questions as to what I'm doing or why I'm doing it!

Once I make my return from slumberland to reality, I've found I have more energy in the morning to do things. When making the choice of whether to shop in the morning or the afternoon, I factor in my aversion to crowds and crowded parking lots. Therefore, I am willing to set my alarm and wake up earlier than normal in order to get my shopping done. Parking is easier since I acquired my handicap card, but I still keep in mind what I learned while living in Atlanta: all's fair in love, war, and parking spaces.

I'm at that age now where shopping is more of a necessary evil than an enjoyable excursion. The typical shopaholic's battle cry of "shop til you drop" prompts my response of, "That's the first fifteen minutes. Then what?" Of course, all bets are off when you walk into a Wal-Mart Supercenter. I always seem to walk out of a Wal-Mart with more items than I originally intended to buy. How do we know those Wal-Mart greeters aren't secretly hypnotising us to buy more stuff? Think about it! How many stores do you know that have greeters? Before anyone thinks I've lost my mind, I'm joking, of course.

I knew I needed quite a few grocery items and a few personal items, so I opted for the motorized buggy (another reason to get out of bed early to go shopping). With my back, there would have been no way I could have done all that shopping and stayed on my feet. In our store in Waycross, they moved all of the benches out of the shopping areas and placed them near the exit doors. It's a big store! People need to stop and rest! All I can say is the store would get a lot less of my business if they didn't have the motorized carts.

Headed over to the shampoo aisle. I'm besieged by an array of assorted shampoos, and none of them make sense to me. Even my favorite brand changed on me! They've got shampoo with jasmine, aloe vera, vanilla, apple, extract of coconut, or some other "natural" ingredient. They've got shampoo for just about every type of hair EXCEPT normal hair or oily hair. Apparently, the makers of these hair products don't believe there is such a thing as normal hair anymore. With my oily scalp, I can't afford to use a shampoo for dry hair, damaged hair, or color-treated hair; it would never look clean and freshly washed. I pick up a bottle of the least expensive brand that closely resembles plain shampoo and move on.

We just barely got through Halloween, and the Christmas decorations are already up. Once again, I will be sick of Christmas and the Holiday season before it gets over with. I dread going to the stores after Thanksgiving! In fact, you won't find me anywhere near a store the morning after Thanksgiving! My dad and Aunt Mavis made that mistake a few years ago. Four o'clock in the morning, and the parking lots were overflowing. Dad commented about how rude and territorial many of the shoppers were. Nope, we're staying home.

In the electronics section, they had the combination VCR and DVD player machines on sale. I couldn't help but notice the bold white letters on the box that read, "This device will not copy copyrighted material." Hmmm ... you gotta wonder how that's going to affect sales of that product. Ooh, check out the cordless phones with Caller ID! They've got translucent royal blue, translucent navy blue, and translucent purple. Darn, no translucent pink. Purple will have to do. What other features does this phone have? Who cares? It's purple! In the latest trend of electronic gadgets and appliances in which the choices are black, white, or gray, purple is a welcome change.

Ah! The seasonal aisle! All sorts of cutesy tins, bottles, knick knacks, and other trinkets we normally wouldn't purchase any other time of year. Let's not forget the oversized gift boxes of food or bath products deceptively packaged to make you think you're getting more than what's really in there. Admittedly, I have a weakness for the summer sausage and cheese packages, but the prices usually are enough to deter me. Sorry, but I can't see paying $14.99 for 4 oz of meat and 4 oz of cheese with a child-size box of crackers. Heck, I can get some sliced pepperoni, monterrey jack cheese, and triscuit crackers and be just as happy.

Oh, I can't forget my four-legged friend, the ditch dog. She loves her treats. She's not picky; she'll eat just about anything you hand feed her, including the hand that feeds her! I gotta be careful not to accidentally serve up "lady fingers" with her treat.

Now my shopping trip is starting to wind down as I get to the grocery section. We have a wider selection of food products than ever before. Sometimes I think they need to separate the grocery section into two sub-sections: pre-packaged food and real food. The prepackaged food looks tasty and promises convenience and quality. However, many of these foods are too salty or too bland or too mealy or too processed or too ... something. Occasional convenience is fine, but my taste buds long for home cooking on most days. If I have the recipe and the necessary utensils, I'll try to do it from scratch. Thank God for the crock pot.

The old adage of "don't shop for groceries when you're hungry" is so true. You may be standing there with a small list originally, but you'll be walking out with a cart full of stuff that looked good at the time you put them in your cart. You get home, you put the stuff away, then later you'll end up experiencing buyer's remorse as you stand there, looking in your pantry, refrigerator, and/or freezer, and realize you don't want ANYTHING you've got. Reminds me of an indecisive single person getting ready for a date, looking in his/her closet full of clothes, and moaning, "I don't have anything to wear."

By now, I've noticed how crowded the store has become, and I head to the checkout. I guess they had the same idea I had but decided to sleep in first. I try to be a good little customer and have my check written out before the cashier completes scanning my purchases. I think the only thing that annoys me about waiting at the cash register is when someone ahead of me is holding up the line for stupid stuff or feels the compulsion to argue with the cashier about something that is not the cashier's fault. I'd like to tell someone of these argumentive blowhards with a superiority complex to save their rant for Oprah and finish their purchases before the rest of us take root for waiting so long. For example, it's not the cashier's fault that customer's credit card/check/atm card got rejected. Don't stand there and argue like your reputation in town is on the line. Use another method of payment or get out of the way! Take it up with the bank or credit card company, not the cashier.

About 90 minutes after I entered the store, I emerged significantly poorer but happy with my purchases. I can never walk into a Wal-Mart Supercenter and get "just a few things. By then, it was a little after ten o'clock in the morning. It never occurred to me that there were this many people shopping at this time of the morning, especially on a Sunday. The parking lot was nearly full with shoppers in casual attire. Heck, the owners of Wal-Mart don't care; they'll be happy to take money from us non-church-going sinners.

I headed home and unloaded the truck. After everything was put away, I sat down in my computer chair and actually considered ... taking a nap.

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