They Moved the Aisles!

I repeat, THEY MOVED THE AISLES!!!

I am a creature of habit. I don't take well to change. I shop at the same stores. I eat at the same restaurants and I order the same things I always do when I go there.

Today's line up: Chris - teaching summer school. Q - at the sitters. This left the girls and I to do the grocery shopping. Mind you, I love grocery shopping. Really. I love knowing that it is going to take me 28 minutes to shop for a week. (We make a menu and a list and I roll through the store like I am a contestant on Super Market Sweep.) I love our grocery store because I always see people I know, I've taught half of the baggers, and they walk me out to my car to load the groceries in the trunk for me.

Only, I love grocery shopping without children. My three years as a single parent of twins taught me this and when Chris and I got married I vowed to never take children to the grocery store again. Yes, there have been occasions in the past five years, but I try to follow this general rule.

So, the girls and I went to the post office and then onto the store. I put my purse and reusable bags in the cart, dug out my list and pen, pushed my sunglasses on top of my head, told the girls to act normal and not like weirdos, and headed into the store. Madonna's song "Secret" was playing when I walked in. This seemed odd to me. This was a club song when I was in college and there was dirty dancing to go along with it. And now it is part of the musical selection for grocery stores. That's like one step away from an elevator.

We pushed our way through the bakery and deli, over to the first aisle to pick up the bread. Only the bread wasn't there. Juice was. It was a little shake up, nothing major, so I pushed over to the produce, and then onto the breakfast aisle. The manager, along with 3 other corporate people, asked me if I was finding everything ok. I said, "Yes. But you've moved the bread. It threw me off that you moved the bread." And then they all chuckled and the manager replied, "Yep. The bread has definitely been moved." If I knew then what I know now, I would have realized that this was foreshadowing.

Because the breakfast aisle, frozen food section and beer aisle were the only things that remained the same. Every pantry item was moved. Whole aisles of food...moved. Sometimes items were still in the same aisle, only moved to the other side. Why? Why would they do this to me? Ugh. I began having anxiety...small, little panic attacks. I had to remind myself to exhale. I was forced to ignore my children who were now twirling down the aisle, spinning out of control. I had bigger fish to fry. Where? Oh, where were the taco shells???

Every aisle that I turned down brought a new panic. I had to continually stop to look at my list. It forced the girls to pay attention to me because I paid no attention to them. They had to keep up on their own.

When it was all said and done, grocery shopping took 49 minutes today....and I spent approx $38.14 less than usual.