Surviving The Grocery Store: A Tale of Going Broke

When I was a child my parents always told me that I needed to make good grades, get a good job, and buy a house. That was the goal. To be a homeowner. So I made good grades, picked a career path that is severely under paid (vet techs of the world UNITE!) and bought a house. It’s a little house, and there are three halfway houses surrounding my little piece of Laura-Land, but it’s all mine. Well, mine and that guy who lives with me and sometimes claims me as his wife when I’m not embarrassing him horribly in public. If a wife can’t talk to her husband about pooping, who can she talk to?

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Thank you parents for giving me goals as a child. Something attainable and worthwhile. You guys are pretty awesome.

But, I do have a bone to pick with you two. You both failed to mention one very important thing. That getting a job wasn’t all about buying a house. And that the majority of my paycheck would be going to something much more fleeting than my home loan.

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The grocery store. Yeah, that bastard of brightly lit lights and recycled 90’s music. The grocery store, the place that will steal your money whilst tricking you into buying weird shit you know you’ll hate. Like ginger Kombucha.

Recently, I found myself in a grocery store at ten o’clock on a Saturday night. That’s where all the cool kids hang out. Or you know, the crazy cat ladies buying an ENTIRE CART FULL of canned cat food. Keep rocking your pj’s and slippers crazy cat lady, you’re not trying to impress us assholes. You’re only goal is to feed your feline overlords and pray they don’t eat you while you’re sleeping. I have a cat, I get your fear.

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My only reasons for going to the store so late at night? To buy apples and a fruit bowl. That’s all. I didn’t even want to buy the whole fruits and cut them up myself. I was tired and wanted fruit NOW! #FirstWorldProblems.

While wondering through the deserted produce section I found myself adding a bunch of shit I hadn’t meant to. Like cantaloupes. Two of them. A honeydew. A giant container of strawberries and black berries. Five honeycrisp apples (WHY ARE THEY SO EXPENSIVE?!), and a pineapple. I know what you’re thinking, she decided to cut up her own fruit. Good for her.

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Nope. I STILL bought the bowl of mixed fruit. Oh, I also bought a basil plant and a rosemary plant for my water infusions. Because I have NO sunlight that enters my home and it seemed like a good investment to buy plants that depend on sunlight to live.

Then I wandered from produce section to the organic food section. Hence the impulse Ginger Kombucha purchase. I then bought a bunch of different fancy drinks. Oh, and my final financial undoing? I bought three stuffed Marvel figures. Ironman for me, Captain America for my bff Kelly, and The Hulk for my other bff Cathryn. Because we don’t have enough nerdy crap to fill our respective homes. I also bought a box of magnum ice cream bars and two pints of gelato, because I am post Whole30 and I NEED ice cream.  ALL THE ICE CREAM.

My quick trip for apples and a fruit bowl cost me $185. Why did I do that?!

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I fell into the grocery store black hole. I fell hard. But I learned some very important things that late night in the local Wegman’s. I learned that Kombucha is terrible and should be avoided at all costs, even if it has ginger in it and you think it might be awesome. I learned that Edward the elderly cashier works Saturday night’s because he’s retired but needs a break from his wife. I learned that there aren’t any children in the grocery store at ten o’clock at night, and it’s AMAZING. I also learned that that is the best time to take your teenage daughter to buy tampons for the first time. It was a pretty intense night at the grocery store.

Aside from learning all of that, I also learned that I’m working my butt off every week to buy and try weird foods that I probably won’t like. But I’m weirdly OK with that.

Have you ever spent way too much in the grocery store? Ever shopped late at night on a Saturday?