Grocery Store Chronicles: 3 Vignettes From My Shopping Adventures

January 16, 2024January 16, 2024 / Ally Bean / 246 Comments

Pretty picture of puzzle pieces put together that has nothing to do with the subject of this post, but pretty picture gotta pretty, right?

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TO BEGIN WITH

Over the years I’ve written about my grocery store shopping experiences and put the stories here under the tag: Grocery Store Chronicles.

[The story about discussing kinds of pears and the story about stealing potato chips have been the most popular. Also there’s Betsy‘s favorite story about me buying beer.]

While the following isn’t one complete story like those I linked to above, these are 3 vignettes about what I watched unfold, and entertained me, while shopping in ye olde Kroger this past holiday season.

LOVE CONQUERS CONFUSION

The layout of the first part of our store goes like this: produce, deli, cheese, bakery, then wine and beer.

It was coming up on New Year’s Eve, busy everywhere in the store.

I’d just seen a couple in their 40s picking out some produce for something specific, while overhearing them talk about making something special to take somewhere.

Moving on I went to the cheese kiosk and found myself standing with about 10 other people there as well as the couple. I looked around and realized that the wife was on the verge of tears because, as she explained for all to hear, she couldn’t remember which kind of cheese she was supposed to buy.

She turned to her husband and said: I dunno, I can’t remember. I’m just a little ball of confusion.

To which he said: You know what I like about that?

Her, sad: No…

Him, leaning in to hug her: You’re MY little ball of confusion.

She smiled weakly while all of us standing around the cheese kiosk in unison went: Aww…

And with that he kissed her and said: I’ll go get the beer while you figure out the cheese. Meet you back here.

KARMA GOT HER NUMBER

It was crowded in the store with people and displays of food/wine everywhere.

Zen-Den and I had a small cart full of items and were heading to the U-Scan lanes to buy our stuff. A woman walking behind us to the U-Scan was impatient with our pace. She did a wild dash around us to get to the U-Scan lanes first, giving us the evil eye as she went by.

We shrugged.

As fate would have it, despite our pace, we ended up in the U-Scan spot beside her, which when she saw us caused her to snarl our way.

We shrugged.

Well, as Z-D played cashier scanning our items, I stood there and watched her, surreptitiously. And here’s what happened: her first credit card was rejected. Her second credit card was rejected.

And when we left having successfully scanned, packed, and paid for our groceries, she was holding a third credit card that had been rejected, while talking on her cell phone with someone.

Half of me felt sorry for her because I’d guess everyone has had a credit card rejected at some point and it is frustrating, BUT considering how impatient she was and her negative attitude toward us… I smiled.

Ha!

WHEN THE WRONG THING IS RIGHT

I was waiting in the cashier line, standing behind a Dad with a cart heaped with groceries and a 3 y.o. sitting in the basket cart seat. The Dad was at the front of the cart while the boy was directly in front of me.

The little guy was laser-focused on everything his Dad was putting on the conveyor belt. Nothing escaped his notice.

About halfway through unloading the cart the boy told his Dad: That’s the wrong milk.

Dad: What?

Boy: It’s blue.

Dad: WHAT?

Boy: It should be red.

Dad, catching on that his son was talking about the color of the label on the milk: No the blue one is right this time.

Boy, raising his eyebrow like the 50 y.o. man he’ll be: Mom. buys. red.

Dad, still putting items on the conveyor belt: The blue one is buttermilk. It’s the right one this time because Mom is making cookies and this is what she uses.

Boy, shaking his head, rolling his eyes, explaining to me under his breath: Mom BUYS cookies… and she’s gonna be mad about no red milk.

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QUESTIONS OF THE DAY

So, been shopping in a brick and mortar store lately? And how did that go for you?

Overheard anything that made you smile?

Or watched something happen that brought out the snark in you?

Or confirmed that kids can be wise beyond their years?

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The Mystery Of The Missing Marjoram + Reader Comments About Manufactured Victories

November 14, 2023November 15, 2023 / Ally Bean / 245 Comments

TALKING ABOUT MARJORAM

“I have always relied on the kindness of strangers.”

We needed some marjoram. NEED I tell ‘ya! Zen-Den was making gyros for dinner.

He’d made the tzatziki sauce, bought the feta and black olives and pitas and peppers, but alas and alack when he went to put together the dry blend for flavoring the meat we didn’t have any marjoram.

Thus I went to the grocery to buy some.

Being familiar with our Kroger I knew where the spice aisle was in the store, but when I stood there looking at the shelves with about 3 gazillion jars and containers and bottles of spices and herbs and extracts, I didn’t see marjoram.

In fact, I couldn’t even find a little tag that showed it had ever been on a shelf.

As if, I muttered, knowing it had to be there, right?

So in what for an introvert might be considered stepping outside your comfort zone, I asked two friendly chatty women standing beside me if they saw any marjoram. Turned out they were a mother [70-ish] and her daughter [40-ish] who were enthusiastic about joining my impromptu scavenger hunt in the spice aisle.

Hence we three stood there, positioning our bifocals just so, and looked for the elusive marjoram plus what they were looking for [thyme and poultry seasoning]. We found what they needed, many times over, but the marjoram just wasn’t there.

I shrugged, thanked them for their help and went on my way, walking a few aisles away from the spice aisle to where I knew I needed to pick up something else.

From my favorite webcomic called Underpants and Overbites

But as I was standing in the middle of that aisle, I heard the younger woman yelling “I found it!” as she ran up to me with a jar of marjoram. She handed me the herb and explained that she’d found it with the label turned around backwards, in the wrong spot, hidden behind some oregano.

And then because she was a compassionate foodie person, she’d come looking for me by going up and down the aisles, wanting to make sure I got what I came to the store for.

Bashfully, almost apologetically, she explained that once she started doing something she had to finish it, she was compulsive like that, and this sort of search was her thing.

I had to find it, she told me.

I thanked her over and over, then waved good-bye while thinking, there really are some nice people in this world who don’t want to do anything more than just help other people.

And fortunately for the fate of our Greek dinner, I’d just met one.

QUESTIONS OF THE DAY

Have you ever asked a stranger for help finding something in a store? How’d that go for you?

Do you wonder sometimes how we have evolved into a society in which an act of kindness like this one is so rare that it is almost shocking?

Do you use marjoram in cooking? We have a lot of it now, so any recipe suggestions are welcome.

AND FINALLY FOUR READER COMMENTS…

About the Value of Manufactured Victories:

“Manufactured victories are part of my time management process. Like painting a wall. I get out the paint, then celebrate. Check for the brushes (which I find), dropcloths and tools. Then I celebrate. Now I notice I forgot something and need a store run. The good news-bad news is that I get to celebrate when I come home. All this celebrating and I haven’t yet painted the dang wall!”

~ Kate Crimmins

“… every blog post is its own victory–over apathy, inertia, and sometimes technology…. I feel like failure gets a bad rap in our winner-centric country. I’d like to normalize failure, especially for our kids. You might not have won, but you learned a ton!”

~ AutumnAshbough

“I think manufactured victories are very similar to moral victories, where the object was not to win but to actually try real hard. (Of course, a win is nice, too.)”

~ John Holton

“I don’t agree with the Vulcans that the DS9 crew had manufactured their victory. They were victorious in their sportsmanship. They didn’t begrudge the Vulcans their win, but the DS9 team had fun and experienced healthy camaraderie by showing up and playing together.”

~ Marie A Bailey

Out For A Walk: Honestly Just A Nice Stroll To See Where A Bridge Used To Be

November 7, 2023July 1, 2025 / Ally Bean / 199 Comments

PLEASE NOTE: Yesterday Elisabeth at The Optimistic Musings Of A Pessimist interviewed me for her ongoing series featuring bloggers. I was happy to participate. Go HERE to read the interview.

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I like November.

In my part of the midwest it’s the calm before the storm, the pause before the whirlwind of the holidays. It’s a delightful time to just BE.

Grateful for cool nights and sunny days.

Peaceful and introspective, even.

Consequently while many bloggers worldwide are participating in NaBloPoMo [National Blog Post Month] or NaNoWriMo [National Novel Writing Month], I’m feeling pleasantly detached from writing, inclined to relax into each moment without wordiness.

To wit, as a few of you may recall I used to do posts on this blog in which I shared photos of where I/we went for a walk. Recently I realized that I got away from doing that during the pandemic, shifting into writing more, photographing less.

However today in light of my mellow mood and my lack of verboseness, I’ll post the following photos I took last Friday afternoon when the sun was shining brightly.

We decided to see what was going on with a state project to replace a pedestrian bridge, on a former railroad bridge, that is part of a popular bike path. We wanted to see where the bridge used to be.

And who doesn’t like a post that includes a photo of what isn’t there anymore? 🤔

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This photo was taken while walking through Loveland OH on a beautiful autumn afternoon.

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Locally referred to as the Loveland Bike Trail, the official name of this path is the Little Miami State Park.

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On the bike trail, which is used by runners and walkers as often as cyclists, you can find this building, the Little Miami Conservancy.

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As you get closer to the closed portion of the path you now see this sign.

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And this sign, a free parking sign, that has been tossed casually onto the ground until it is needed again.

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The pedestrian bridge that you do not see here is being replaced by The Ohio Department of Natural Resources.

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This is a photo of the Little Miami River, part of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System. It is the river over which the bridge that used to be was, and the river that will again have a pedestrian bridge over it once the new one is built.

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Positivity Got You Down? Let Me Suggest Something

October 3, 2023October 3, 2023 / Ally Bean / 273 Comments

Not everyone grooves on uplifting thoughts all the time.

I understand this.

In fact when I was in college there were no Gratitude Journals, that wasn’t a thing like it is today.

Instead we kept what we called Bitch Books. They were nothing special to look at, just spiral notebooks with a theme, however it sounded better to refer to them as Bitch Books.

So we did.

To clarify, we called them this not because we thought of ourselves as bitches, even if we might have been, but because we needed a place to write about our issues, all the wrongs that we felt we’d suffered.

Oy vey!

Granted we also discussed our issues in lengthy conversations with a few people who would now be called your negativity friends [HERE], but often there were hurts that could only be expressed adequately, with the proper amount of collegiate drama, by writing about them ad nauseam in our Bitch Books.

We hid our books from our nosy roommates and unenlightened boyfriends because they could never know what we were really thinking. Heaven forbid there’d be open authentic communication.

We knew that our profs would never see the crap we’d written about them, so many pages of my book were filled with deets of professorial incompetence, stupidity, and hypocrisy. No surprise, huh?

I’d not thought about Bitch Books in decades, and probably wouldn’t have thought about them again, if it weren’t for an advertisement that shows up, unsolicited, on my Instagram feed*.

This intrusive ad confirms that everything old is new again. To wit, let me share a link to today’s version of a Bitch Book.

It’s stylish, something that’s now called a Grievance Journal [HERE], described by Boardwalk Gifts, the purveyor of it, as a “the perfect repository for all your existential angst and daily gripes!”

Which no doubt it is.

And here’s the dealio, which is really where I’m going with this post. For a mere $28.00 you, my ~~little bitches~~ gentle readers, can purchase your very own Grievance Journal in which you, if you feel the need, can write about all the crap that happens to you.

OR, and this is just a thought, you could replicate what we did back in the day and write your angsty unhappiness in an 1 Subject College Ruled Spiral Notebook [HERE] currently available for $3.39 at Target.

It’s your money and your life, of course.

Obviously I don’t know how much bitching you need to do, so please, I encourage you, do what you feel suits you best.

* I’m on Instagram as thespectacledbean [HERE]