Rant: Grocery Shopping

Grocery shopping is always an experience when you have a toddler with you. Let's start with the shopping carts. They have the seat for the little one, but it's so darn hard to get him into the seat because the flap they sit on automatically pops up and when The Boy already doesn't want you to put him in the seat, it makes for a very uncomfortable moment. Then, once he's in, there's the buckle. The buckle is places up high, right under his armpits, so it pulls his upper body back, but he is still small so he still flops all over. It's quite easy for him to crawl out of the seat despite being buckled and I am constantly having to put him back into the seat. He much prefers facing backwards and letting his drool fall on the groceries in the back of the cart. Obviously the person who invented this style of cart did not have children of his own.

Then there's the organization of the store. Some baby stuff is in a baby area, while other baby items, like toothbrushes, are with general merchandise. I have to go all over the store for just a few items on my list. Signs are always marked wrong and I'm always getting confused as to where things are located. This could be just me, but I see other people complaining about the same things.

Then it's time to check out. I decide to use the self check out lane, not the express lane, but the one for unlimited items. The less I have to deal with people the faster I can leave the store. As I'm running my items over the scanner, I notice there is milk on The Boy's zesty tomato crunchies. I have already scanned the milk, so I go down to the end where my milk sits and notice it is open. I go back to the scanner and push the help button. When help finally arrives, I explain that I already scanned the milk before realizing it was leaking. She asks if I still want to buy the milk and I say that I'd like to buy milk, but not that particular milk. She says that I should finish checking out and then I can go back and get my milk and all I can picture is me getting arrested for what looks like milk being shop lifted. I'm also wondering why someone doesn't just run back and grab me a new milk considering it's not my fault that their milk was already opened. But, whatever. As I finish scanning my items, I notice what I think is a bag boy bagging my groceries. He's down there for a couple minutes and I don't even notice when he leaves and I assumed my groceries are already bagged for me, which would be very nice considering The Boy is now very agitated that he is still buckled into the cart. I finish paying and head down to put my bagged groceries in the cart.

That's when I notice that all of my groceries are nicely organized at the end of the lane, but not bagged. Wouldn't it have taken the same amount of time to bag my groceries as it would have to organize them? But, whatever. I bag my groceries and find the lady who told me to go get my milk to double check with her how I am going to get my milk since I have already paid for it. She says to just tell the greeter that I am getting a new milk since my other milk was leaking.

I find the greeter and tell her that I need to get new milk and she makes me leave my cart at the front with her, which I understand, but come on - just find someone to go get the milk for me so that I don't have to carry my annoyed toddler to the back corner of the store to get a new half gallon of milk. Nope. But, whatever. I unbuckle my wriggly child and lug his 23 pound butt to the back of the store and get the new milk. When I get back to my cart, I then have to put him back into the seat so we can finally go out to the van and leave.

Normally I enjoy grocery shopping, but in the store's attempt to cut down on spending by getting rid of useless employees by having the customer do all of their own work, they also lose a lot of respect from those customers. Perhaps they should just hand the customer a ten dollar bill when they arrive at the store so that doing the employees work for them will actually pay off.