Those zany, crazy days of shopping before Christmas
Braved the crowds yesterday to go to Costco and pick up some groceries with my mother. We got there just after it opened and it was already packed. In fact, it was so crowded each available parking spot had half a dozen people vying for it, so I ended up hopping out of the car to start shopping while my mother looked for parking. She ended up with meter parking a block away, so hoofing the groceries across the vast Costco parking lot took a bit of doing. Still, it's part of the reason I usually sling boxes of drives at work on my shoulder, so I can keep in practice. :)
Today at Safeway was a bit nutty, though more because I kept running into very slow shoppers. I needed to get a bag of brown sugar and there was a little old lady in front, blocking my access to said sugar. I didn't want to be rude and reach around her, so I waited. But she had some problems reading the labels and appeared to be vacillating between two different packages. She ended up asking me (in Cantonese) which was the dark brown and why did the two packages look different (same stuff, just normal bag-to-bag variation, but I don't know enough Cantonese to explain that).
And after she left, an old man steps in front to reach for the yeast packets next to the bread crumbs I need to buy.
But no, he decides he doesn't like the individual packets in front. He wants to dig through the entire display to find the freshest (I presume) packets. So I patiently wait a few minutes before reaching for the box of crumbs and leaving. I don't know if he planned on opening each box to find the packets he wanted, but I wasn't going to wait around and find out.
But the best part is at the checkout. Normally, I go through Self-Checkout, but this time opted for the Express Lane. This is the 15 items or less line and there are only a couple women in front who appear to be shopping together. But ... it appears that they have way more than 15. In fact, closer to 50 total is a more accurate number. So they split it between them. And they proceed to slowly count out their cash (lots of pennies, natch) and then ask for more bags because their cake is melting.
And after the first one is done, the second one does the same thing, but after paying, the clerk asks if she had entered her Club Card. Discussion ensues and she then yells to her sister down the aisle, "Hey, what's our number again?" Much discussion/shouting continues as they try a few times to get their Club Card entered to get some money back.
By this time, I'm trying really hard not to say something snide, as it's not helpful and would be rather pointless. The melting cake has left a small puddle in the line, which I point out to the clerk when it's my turn. She comes around with some towels and the guy behind me is so frustrated he tells her, "Here, let me clean this. You go back behind the counter so we can get going."
I admit it, I had to suppress a giggle at that.
So to unwind from all that, I'm making a couple batches of cinnamon rolls from scratch. The dough's resting/rising while I'm doing the same thing. :)