A loaf of bread, a container of milk, & a stick of butter

Today Randal & I went and did a rather large grocery trip. It was right before dinner, and I'm sure everyone knows how those grocery trips always turn out. We bought a truckload of food. It all started when we saw hamburger patties and thought, "Ooh, let's have burgers for dinner." Then, in the frozen foods aisle, right outside the freezer full of perogies, our dinner plans changed. Finally, a third time just up the aisle from the cookies (where I'd made a pit-stop for Eat-the-Middle-Firsts) as we walked past fixings for tacos.

So we get everything home and put away, and Randal starts frying up ground beef for our tacos when he asks if we have any sour cream. Of course, we do not. It is after 8:00 by this point so our usual grocery store is closed. However, there is a smaller (more expensive) one right around the corner from where we live, so I volunteer to run over and grab some sour cream.

Back home we finish cooking dinner, I run down and put some laundry on (despite recent protestations I may have made to the contrary, I did in fact get one load (of 7) done). Back up, dinner is almost ready. We crack open the sour cream, and the seal is broken!!! Gross. I had forgotten to check it, in my haste.

So down I run again, sour cream in hand, to the neighbourhood grocer. I walk up to the girl at the counter (different person from when I'd been there before), and say, "Hi, I just bought this about 20 minutes ago and the seal is open."

She looks at me aghast and replies, "That's DISGUSTING, lady!"

I am shocked. This, clearly, was not the reaction I was expecting. I feel slightly mortified. I started to fumble in my pocket - after all, I still had the receipt in there, and there should be no reason why I can't return this sour cream for a new container - it's not my fault their product is faulty. But I have never before been berated by a cashier and, by golly, I'm not about to start now!!!

Then it hits me. The girl did not say I was disgusting; what she actually said was, "That's the disgusting lady." I relax. And she continues on, "She comes in here and opens up all the containers, breaking the seals, smelling them. The first time she came in, she bought yogurt, and I said, 'This yogurt is open - let me get you a new one.' And she told me, "Oh, no, I opened it to check." Which is fine, but if she doesn't like how it smells, she doesn't buy it and then it's ruined! Sometimes I follow her when she's in the store, so I can catch her in the act, but then she doesn't do it."

I put on my most suitably-disapproving face and tsk-tsk in sympathy with the cashier's problem. Then, as bidden, I went off in search of a sour cream container with a pristine seal. Which, I am pleased to say, did exist (I reached right to the back of the shelf, figuring the Disgusting Lady hadn't reached back that far).

The tacos were goooood. And if anyone wants to drop in for dinner sometime this week, I can't announce dates yet, but we will be serving burgers at least one night and perogies (with yummy sour cream, of course) another.


*I found this while looking for that exact quote, and it's quite captivating, and not just because it's way past my bedtime... Many many years of trying to be the one who started off with "I one the sandbox", because it didn't take me long to figure out what happened if you were second in line! (Unfortunately, my older brother figured it out first, and I still wear the emotional scars from multiple sandbox-eating moments, where I'd say "Oh yeah? Well, I SIX the sandbox!" and then gasp, as I suddenly knew what I'd be forced to say next...)