Scavenging for groceries

I'm having one of those days. The kind of day where I drink my normal daily allotment of coffee in the morning, and then feel like I haven't had any coffee at all for the rest of the day. I think this means that I'm tired.

I managed to get some work done this afternoon, finally completing a long-overdue, lingering consulting project that had been weighing me down like a ton of bricks. I'm not sure that it's my best work, but it's done. I put the invoice in the mail today so with any luck, I'll be able to finally pay off my new computer by Christmas.

I finished the project at about 4PM and decided to address another pressing problem: No food in the house. More importantly, no half-and-half in the house. I put together a grocery list and headed to the K grocery store. I've been shopping at the P store, but today, I had some dry cleaning to drop off and the dry cleaner is near the K store, so I went to the K store.

I stopped shopping at the K store when they rearranged all the food. I'm sure some highly paid consultant (present company excluded) thought that rearranging the food was a good idea. I'm sure they conducted many focus groups to decide where to put the food. I'm also sure that they only involved mentally handicapped, logically-impaired gerbils in these focus groups. Since I'm not a mentally handicapped, logically-impaired gerbil, I can't find a damn thing in this store.

Take today for example. I made it through the produce and meat just fine. Then, I turned my cart to the food aisles. I only needed a few things. I passed up the aisle with the buy-in-bulk specials because I'm only one person, I don't need bulk. I made it halfway through my list and realized that I needed rice. I went back down the pasta aisle. No rice. I went to the "ethnic food" aisle -where you can find salsa and chow mein in a can. No rice. Almost giving up, I turned down the bulk food aisle again. There, in the middle of "30 cans of beans for 10 cents" was the rice. I'm sure this made perfect sense to the mentally handicapped gerbils in the focus group. Next time, I'll ask myself, "WWMHLIGD?" (What would mentally handicapped, logically-impaired gerbils do?)

In total, I ended up going through the frozen food section 3 times, saw the pasta 4 times and passed the cheese twice. In the process, I almost mowed down a fellow in a wheelchair. I finally made it to the check-out line. The bag girl asked if I was having a good day. I considered responding, "Why? What have you heard?"

I walked out of the store and headed into the parking lot with great confidence. I knew just where I'd parked. Or not. Overshot it by an entire aisle. Finally, I found my car, loaded up the groceries and came home. Next week, I'm going back to the P store - and I'm drinking more coffee.

But, for now, I'm all set for a rockin' good Halloween. I have popcorn, candy, and . . .

What more could a girl want?