Since retiring about a year ago, I have taken on much of the shopping for our household. I actually don’t mind it at all. It gets me out, helps me get my steps in, and allows me to socialize a bit with the natives. As a trained observer of human nature, I have also made some observations which I will share.
Ten to fifteen minutes of my week are now devoted to logging into the Kroger app and clicking coupons for any items I (or other members of my family as we all share an account) might possibly need to purchase that week. If you see me seemingly parked in my vehicle at Kroger for no reason at all, rest assured that I am most likely feverishly downloading any coupons I might need during my trip into the store.
I am all for charity, but I am kind of fed up with having to go through five questions when checking out about whether I want to donate money to save baby seals or feed hungry New Zealand millennials. I bite my tongue every time, but I want to say something like, “Look lady, I just paid for two cucumbers and a box of quinoa with a $2 bill, 3 Canadian quarters, a crumpled-up coupon you sent me in the mail that I fished out of the trash before I came here, and this week’s digital coupon. I’m not the guy to save the baby seals. How about you and the multibillion-dollar company you work for save the seals?”
Are grandmothers and fire and brimstone preachers designing these donation shake downs you navigate at check out? I’m pretty sure one of them last week finally asked me why I was a monster that wanted baby seals to die after saying no three times to donating money.
While I am on my soap box, if you operate a restaurant and your payment machine offers various suggested percentages for tip amounts, you are most likely costing your hard-working employees money from me. I historically tipped easy to figure rounded amounts that were generally higher than the suggested amount of 15 or 20%. Now it is just easier to pick one of the preset percentage amounts than figure out how to do a custom amount on the machine to get to that rounded amount I used to tip.
Why can’t stores and restaurants settle on a uniform payment machine? I swear I have never encountered any two establishments using the same payment machine. You literally must learn how to use the checkout machine at each store you frequent.
I visited our new Five and Below store last week and despite the establishment’s best efforts at being a self-checkout store, I still required assistance from a store associate. Apparently, at my advancing age, the words on the screen saying press here to pay with a card not only need to be printed in super large letters on the screen but they also need to be flashing red and sounding an alarm for me to see them. I’m pretty sure the young associate thought how nice Cathie was to get this odd old man out of the house and expose him to this brave new world. Cathie says she is never going back in there with me again.
I frequent our local Kroger and Walmart several times each week. I have a mild level of paranoia that I am considered a “regular”, have been assigned a nickname, and been listed on an internal watch list. When I walk in does an alert go out on an internal system that Ole Joe Regular is on store premises and to make sure that he doesn’t sniff and handle every banana?
I recently downloaded a phone app on which to keep track of the grocery/shopping items that we need. I’d like to tell you that this is part of an renewed effort on my part to be organized but if truth be told, the main reason for getting this app was because I was routinely forgetting to buy a container of mixed greens for us to throw away at the end of each week on trash night.
Our local Walmart has been remodeling its store layout for the last couple of months. As a frequent guest of WallyWorld, I have appreciated the extra steps toward my daily steps goal as I try to figure out where my Arizona tea and hair product is now located. I know they didn’t knock out any walls, but I think the store looks bigger but for the life of me I don’t understand the thinking behind their distressed floor motif. It literally looks like they salvaged flooring from another Walmart that was going to be demolished and installed it hoping it would pass as new flooring if they poured gallons of polish on the cracked and chipped flooring.
I was visiting my youngest son in Lexington earlier this week and after meeting him for dinner I checked out a local grocery called Fresh Market. I know it sounds like hippie propaganda, but don’t sleep on those cauliflower crackers and chips. They also had an good special on crab cakes, deviled crab, and stuffed shrimp of which I took advantage.
If you happen to see me parked in my vehicle at the grocery store downloading my coupons, stop by and we will compare digital deals. I might even share my latest recipe find with you! Happy shopping everyone.
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