Grocery Grinch

I like my job, I promise I really do.  I have more autonomy than I’ve been granted in other positions, and I’m even allowed to sit down and eat lunch while at work, luxuries I haven’t always afforded.  But that being said, working in administration at an elementary school has had me doing many things I didn’t initially think I signed up for.  

For example: this morning, when I found myself up in one of our jungle gyms, removing an overhead playset tarp so I could measure it and order a new one.  As I was climbing up the playground rock wall (which was NOT built to support 25-year old women), all while wearing a skirt and sandals, and shimmying up through a climber built for second graders, the rest of our staff was in an important meeting.  Don't mind me.  I'm just the toilet lady who wasn't invited to the meeting, the grown-up person too tall for the jungle gym, but in the jungle gym nonetheless. 

But since we’ve been having summer school for the last two months, I’ve been slated with the responsibility of grocery shopping for the 4 to 7 classrooms that have been in session.  That’s right - compiling a giant master grocery list, getting in my little car, driving over to Trader Joe’s, and then purchasing an inordinate amount of food. Getting paid to shop, yes, but with its own very particular set of semi-awkward drawbacks.  

Oh look, bananas.  Now, a normal person would take a bunch and be satisfied, right? But that’s not me.  No, sorry, I need SIX bunches of bananas please.  And FIVE bags of baby carrots.  Why not take EIGHT cartons of red grapes while we’re at it.  And FOUR bags of bagels.  Oh, and you’re stocking crackers here? Excuse me for a second, can I just sneak in here and grab a few? And by a few, well, I mean SEVEN BOXES OF CRACKERS.  I always picked up my crackers and (my FIVE BAGS OF TORTILLA CHIPS) last so I could set them precariously on top of my little red cart already teeming with crazy amounts of snacks, one hand on top of my cartload holding everything in place as I ineffectively attempted to steer with the other hand. 

I’ll just come right out and say it: every week, without fail, I've been required to grocery shop like a selfish person for my job.  Why leave anything for anyone else to buy? I WANT NEED IT ALL!!  Each week, I burst in the store and clear our friendly neighborhood tropical friends out of their produce and string cheese and salsa, rolling down the aisle, sweeping jars of jelly and cans of black beans into my cart with reckless and insatiable abandon, completely clearing the shelves like some kind of healthful, albeit gluttonous, pig.  There are unspoken expectations of grocery shopping you are expected to uphold as a functioning member of society, and one of those is to take what you need and leave the rest for someone else.  Apparently, to the outsider, I’m above those rules.  (Or maybe they're more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules. Welcome aboard the Black Pearl.) Who cares if you think I don’t need FOUR cartons of strawberries and ELEVEN tubs of hummus? I’m taking them all the same! Stop judging!

Trader Joe’s is not a large store to begin with, and in relation, neither are their shopping carts.  So I definitely stood out among the lunch crowds and glistening post-workout moms popping in for salads and protein bars, as I trundled along behind my mountain of delicately balanced food, knocking into displays, ignoring the judgmental side-eye glances of my fellow store patrons.  Without fail, every week someone would walk by and ask annoyingly, “You having a party?” The second unspoken rule of grocery shopping is that we all keep to ourselves and if you’re going to judge someone, do it in your head.  But since I was breaking the first rule, everyone else was entitled to break the second.  “This isn’t Costco, lady!” I could feel them sneering at me silently.  

Often times, the cashiers would call in for back-up assistance, which was just one more reason to feel slightly ashamed embarrassed.  This lady has SOOO much food that it takes TWO people to take it out of her cart and then put it back in, Tetris-like.  Last week, as if a grand finale to all my shopping trips, a final farewell to my summer school shopping days, the cashiers even had to acquire an extra cart.  Two carts – the Trader Joe’s walk of shame.  The “I bought so much food, I can’t even take it all out to my car by myself in one trip” walk.  An attractive little man helped me wheel my bounty out to my car, and of course because of the kind of person I am, I couldn't remember where I parked my car, which isn't saying much, since I never do.  All in all, it was a gigantic weekly thankless production that always rendered me really sweaty but rewarded me in free samples.  

Moral of the story:  Don't be a grocery grinch unless you're being paid to do so.  (Also, don't buy the really spicy chiptole salsa for 4-year old kids.)

In unrelated news, I've finally started watching all of Seinfeld all the way through and I can't get enough.  Cassus belli.