One-Liner Wednesday – Grocery Shopping

“Warning, they rearranged the store since you’ve been there.”

Stop and Shop
Abandon all hope, ye who enter here

Last week, I was watching my daughter’s cats while she was on vacation. The day before she was going to return, I thought I would go to the grocery store, so she wouldn’t have to go out and get milk for her coffee. Rather that guess at what she might need (as I have done in the past) I decided to ask her if there was anything she wanted.

The on-liner up there was part of her response.

It was too late. I had already offered. I had to go, but my only thought was:

“Seriously? I was almost to the point where I could find the usual suspects. What the heck is wrong with these people?”

I get it. They keep moving the stuff to different parts of the store so you have to walk around. They’re hoping that, as you walk around, you’ll see stuff you didn’t come for. And you’ll buy that stuff. I mean why else would you put the cereal where the crackers used to be and the crackers where the prepared food used to be? If you haven’t guessed, I was looking for crackers.

Mike’s Cherry Lemonade – I deserve this.
I thought I’d get myself a bag of chips.
when did yogurt become its own nation?
I’m glad she didn’t want any juice.
I found the crackers, but what kind of crackers to buy. Original…where are the originals?
Wow, Hillary has gained 103 lbs.
She said the cheese she wanted was in the dairy case
I like the frozen food aisle the best. I don’t buy anything here but it’s clear sailing.
I thought this was a grocery store. Where’s the food?
It just goes on and on and on…
Cookies yes. Not that bag though.

At least they didn’t move that aisle, so I didn’t accidentally end up there. You all know what aisle I’m referring to. The aisle men never visit. God forbid that they ever put the crackers in with those products. Fortunately, as with everything else, those products seem to need an entire aisle for themselves.

One Liner WednesdayThis post is part of Linda G. Hill’s fun weekly series One-Liner Wednesday.

91 thoughts on “One-Liner Wednesday – Grocery Shopping”

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    1. Target moves things around, constantly, but at least the aisles are still fairly wide. I hope that trend isn’t contagious. I had to go to the Walmart Super Store near us, because they were the only store that had an item I needed. The aisles were so narrow, two carts could barely pass. I’m sure it’s legal, but I’m guessing they were out there with a tape measure when they move those bins.

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  3. One of my local grocery stores has the irritating habit of changing the location of products – but not the signs over the aisles. It can take them a few weeks to get around to changing the sides.
    Customers are left wandering up and down the aisles asking each other ‘have you seen …?’. It’s ridiculous.

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    1. Oh, that’s the worst! A friend of mine, who also shops in that store, tells me that there’s a small sign at the end of each aisle with everything in the aisle listed on it. I swear, I’ve never seen one. I wander around like a member of the lost tribes.

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  6. I love grocery shopping. Ever since I have been married, I love going out for grocery shopping. In fact, sometimes I and Sarah go window shopping at a grocery store. We note the prices and then try to adjust them in our upcoming shopping trip. Sarah logs everything on MS-Excel, so that she can see the price fluctuation of every single item that we buy regularly. She likes to be in total control when it comes to home budget. I, on the other hand, focus on what my family want. If Sarah or my elder bro wants something I see to it that they get it, I don’t care much about the budget going a bit high or low. And the grocery store we go to also switching stuff to different parts of the store which can be confusing, but I usually go when I have at least 2-3 hours to shop around. The store is not as big as you guys have it like Wal-Mart, Costco, Target, but it’s still big enough for a small town like Vasai.

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      1. I’m a different kind of shopper. Most ladies here read the packaging when they buy any shampoo or packaged food. I read the ingredients list, then I compare different products, so many ladies wonder “What is this guy reading & comparing?” I can see from the corner of my eye many people staring at me, but I don’t mind it now. Since I am into writing I usually stay informed about what my family consumes. Luckily, Sarah and my bro know that I have more knowledge about these ingredients, or at least I can research and find out if certain ingredients are good or bad – but at the end of the day, I love grocery shopping. I have been at a grocery store for 4-5 hours at a stretch and I felt I came out too early.

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        2. Same with M and I — we love it. BUT, we also do nto like the rearranging. Fortunately for us, they don’t do it often. And we are ingredients readers and non-gmo and organic shoppers and looking for what is in IT.

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  8. Oh my. I do hate it when they rearrange. I find it particularly unnerving when they build a new location of a familiar store and it’s arranged unlike the others. Especially when they’re so large. Our new Meijer is so close and nice, but the first time I went in it, I actually thought, “Oh no, they’ve forgotten to sell bread.” :P

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    1. Ha Ha – When my daughter was getting ready for her neck surgery, I took her shopping. The local store was so crowded, we went to one in the neighboring town. Same company, but the stores were nothing like each other. It was almost scary, I felt like we needed to hire a guide.

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  9. I completely understand your frustration, Dan. Been there, felt that! It’s bad enough when you’re looking for something new and you just don’t know where to find it (not necessarily where you’d expect, either), but when the old standbys are standing somewhere else, it’s annoying! My goal is to get in and out as quickly as possible while saving the maximum amount. But real pet peeve about grocery stores is how cold they are!!

    janet

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    2. You are so right about the cold, Janet. We walk to a nearby grocery store because it’s the closed Dunkin Donuts location. The blast of cold that hits us as we walk in, is really disturbing. Thanks for adding that!

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  10. I do think their is a marketing strategy but I am a shopping wanderer once a month and it doesn’t effect me, but I do feel for elderly and young parents “on the go,” Dan. The Mike’s lemonade varieties are some of my favorites!

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  12. One of our stores recently changed their aisles, but only because one grocery store took over another and arranged it similar to their current stores. I like what they did to the produce section, but I have to go on a hunt for anything else. Thankfully, I usually only buy produce there.

    Our mega grocery store, Woodman’s, has a yogurt aisle similar to yours…maybe bigger. Cheese and milk aisles are the same. It’s a dairy takeover.

    Good job on the adult refreshment. We all need that from time to time.

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    1. Seriously, I felt I deserved a reward after navigating the dairy case. They really need to add trail blazes so you can see that you’re still on the way to the beer. How much yogurt can the world consume?

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      1. Fun facts: Yogurt sales in the U.S. are expected to increase to $9.3 billion dollars by 2017. In 2014, Green yogurt had 52% of the yogurt market share.

        I recently found some delicious plain, lactose-free yogurt that mixes well with black cherries. Yum.

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        1. My wife accuses me of only eating the “fake” yogurt, as she calls it. I can’t get so much as a spoonful of Greek Yogurt down. $9.3 Billion? That’s like the GDP od a small country. That’s absurd, but thanks for the information, Mary. I never would have guessed.

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  13. Yeah, I’m no fan of rearranged shelves, either. I feel that way when I’m in a store I don’t shop in often. I wander from here to there, taking twice as long to finish because I’m crisscrossing the store so many times. Not fun. And ha, it’s funny for me to see Mike’s on a grocery-store shelf. I live in a state where all alcoholic beverages, even beer and wine, are sold only in liquor stores. Toasting you with a Milano, Dan …

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    1. Thanks Paul. I grew up in Pennsylvania, where beer was sold only in beer distributors and wine and other alcohol was sold in State owned liquor stores. I read that they recently started selling wine in grocery stores. We can only buy beer in groceries for now. I really think their effort to increase the time you spend shopping is a disservice, but you often don’t really have a choice.

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  14. I’ve been there felt this Dan! My local grocery store moved across the street and changed their whole layout. It took me years to get to know the store as well as I did before the move…then they rearranged! It’s been a couple of years and they’re still moving things.

    Recently they moved the raisins again and I had to ask where they moved them to, and Baby Girl insists on eating boxed mac&cheese the original and I couldn’t find that for her either. It wasn’t on the pasta aisle. Why not? Thankfully I stick to the parameters for the majority of my shopping there so when I have to go into the aisles hunting it’s an adventure.:)

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    1. I don’t do much grocery shopping, so it’s always an adventure for me. I get mad at Target because the keep switching the aisles or switching stuff from one side of the aisle to the other. There’s just no good reason for that (as far as I can tell). This problem seems to resonate with a lot of people. Thanks for joining in, Deborah.

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  15. As someone who always goes shopping with a carefully constructed list, and also as someone who rarely does any impulse/non-essentials buying, the “shelf shake-up” is something I truly loathe. I don’t want to linger in the store longer than I have to. I already have to bite my tongue as I get jostled by the herd of rude cows at the meat counter who simply can’t wait their turn. I want to get in and out, no dawdling. Every second I can shave off my store trip, the better!

    The shake-up used to happen maybe once a year, but I’ve noticed that they’re doing it more and more now — more like every 3 months or so. The worst was when they decided to stick the dog food aisle across from the dairy section. Yeah, that makes SO much sense! Nothing says, “You’re hungry and should by more food” better than the smell of Kibbles n’ Bits in the morning!

    But in the end, the joke’s on them. The more I have to search, the more upset I get. The more upset I get, the less I feel like buying. The less I feel like buying, the less money I spend. So there, store! Nya! xP

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    2. I think you’re able to pull that off, Wendy, due to the “carefully constructed list” which I rarely have. I would like to be able to dump my list into a program and sort it by aisle in left-to-right order. This store is awful. You’re basically routed through the dairy and frozen foods sections as you enter. Of course, I can’t load up yet, because I have no clue how long I’ll be there, so I’m doomed to retrace the steps right from the start. I did opt to punish them by not buying some discretionary items, but I am an impulse shopper, so their strategy works on me :(

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  16. I was banned from the grocery store fifteen years ago. My wife does all the shopping since I am guilty of impulse buying. Also, I have a habit of not looking at expiration dates and not taking the price per unit into consideration when making a purchase. The last straw was coming home with all the coupons still in my pocket. (even though I bought every item). Great post, Dan.

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    1. I am guilty on all counts, John. Don’t you hate pulling those coupons out? I don’t get to shop in our house. I was allowed to stop on my way home during a snow storm. My wife refuses to shop on those days. I got the one item she wanted, and three bags of snacks :)

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  20. My pet peeve is when I go to the same grocery store that I shop at, but on the other side of town and the store has everything the exact opposite of my store. Oh, this store has the Dairy Section on the right side? I never quite get me bearings when the stores are flip-flopped and manage to waste my time going up and down the aisles…all because they flipped the darn store!

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  21. I must confess that when I worked in retail I did shake up my store quite often, but note I was a novelty store, a place people went to wander. I didn’t have your daily essentials, and I wasn’t a part of your quick stop between work and home. I myself grow incredibly infuriated when grocery stores move the Velveeta…who the heck knows what aisle that alien substance that will outlast the Apocalypse is supposed to be categorized in.

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  22. I rushed in the other day to do one of those “quick buy and get out” transactions. Guess what, Dan? It wasn’t in the normal place. My quick buy turned into a long nightmare search.

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  23. Our grocery store does this often and it just drives me crazy because I know where things are which is convenient so I can zip in and zip out. Just because of the morality issue involved I do not buy more “stuff”. Not quite sure which isle “men” don’t go to …. are you talking the ice cream isle? ;) <3

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  24. I don’t like grocery shopping. We only have one major store, but there’s a lot of them, Walmart or a bad discount supermarket. One time the ‘good’ store re-arranged everything. Split the aisles in half down the middle (no more long aisles) and then they handed out maps to where everything moved to. That was a few years ago, and still can’t find some things and have to ask. At the present time they are in a remodeling mode, so it’s all a mess again. Blah!

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  26. My husband is the shopper here (I shop, but I do it online. It will, one day, be my undoing but at least I know where to find things) and one of the big stores he shops at is Lidl who have the same habit of moving things regularly. It’s one of the reasons he avoided the place for so long, but he seems to have got the hang of it so I guess there is some sort of logic to what they do… though what sort, I don’t know!

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  29. Oh , boy ! You’ve hit this one on the head as far as I’m concerned. My local grocery seems to think it’s a good idea to switch placement of items , too ! I have figured out no purpose except making the customer wander around and eventually ask a clerk . I make a policy to stifle using the word ‘hell” or any profanity as I ask , but sometimes it’s an effort . And those overhead signs saying what’s where used to be easy to read . Now they’re triangular and nearly impossible to read from almost any angle — certainly from a distance . It’s amazing how screwed up the new [ expletive deleted ] is !

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  30. They did that to me at the beginning of the summer. I had a route I took through the store so that I was barely stopping to pick up what I needed and throwing it into the basket. Now it takes me longer, of course. And I still don’t get anything that isn’t on my list. My budget isn’t flexible. When they rearranged this last time, they even made a couple of the isles slightly skinnier just so they could make this huge display in the produce section. The other customers and I squeeze by each other, not angry with each other, but still mumbling about the stupid store and their “great ideas”.

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