Tourist Season

I, like everyone else I know, have the unfortunate need to provide nourishment for myself. It doesn’t really matter what form it takes, in order to survive I have to eat. This leads to one of the activities I don’t really enjoy. I find that every five to eight days I need to go to the grocery store and stock up on the items that my taste buds enjoy.

Before I get too far down the road I should mention that I have a relatively simple diet. I think I get this from my father who ate the same thing for lunch everyday for as long as I can remember. He would head to work in the morning with a turkey and cheese sandwich, corn chips, maybe a piece of fruit, and a pack of Tastykake brand coffee cakes in a brown lunch bag. The point being, I am also predictable (read: boring) and buy the same stuff every time I go to the store (mostly). At this point you may be asking yourself why I deplore this activity when I know exactly what I’m going to get and where it is located. Well, my issue comes more from the fact that I usually feel like the only person in the store who has this figured out.

You see, I get very frustrated by what I like to call the grocery tourists. You know the type, but if you don’t then you might actually be the tourist (possibly you, mom). These are the people who have a list in one hand and are slowly walking around with no care in the world. They leave their cart in the middle of the isle or, if they are with someone else, walk side-by-side so no one can pass. They like to linger in the high traffic areas with no shopping agenda contemplating who knows what. It’s as if they have never seen food products arranged in isles and on shelves. Or maybe they just happened into a grocery store for the first time in their life. Unlike the grocery tourists, I like to get in and get out as quick as I can. While I’m not the busiest person on the planet, I know that I don’t want to spend my free time looking around the grocery store.

Now I may be a little sensitive to this topic because I happened to be at the store this weekend and was surrounded by way too many grocery tourists that seemed to have no business being in a food store. Sure I could go to multiple specialty stores and possibly avoid some of this hassle but unfortunately I live in an area that doesn’t have a lot of those particular establishments and I’m not that snooty. Either way, I just ask that when you arrive at the grocery store please don’t act like you’re in a library because you’re not there to browse. Keep things moving and have an agenda or please move out of my way.