11/4/2012 A Shopping We Will Go!

(Cocoa Beach, FL)

We’ll be moving on soon and heading south to the Keys.  We have decided that we are going to do a large grocery shopping before leaving Patrick AFB.  We have often heard that the Keys are, shall we say, expensive, and it just seems to follow suit that groceries will also be on the high side.

Just for the heck of it I checked out the local KOA to see what a campsite would cost.  Granted, KOA  is always a tad bit higher than other campgrounds, usually because they often right off a major roadway and convenient.  Typically, we have found them to run between $35.00 and $48.00 depending on location.  Well, that $48 would be downright cheap in the Keys!  I got a price of $110 per night for the local KOA. 

So we’re going food shopping and we’re stocking up.  I go into this knowing I’m going to spend more than usual just because Bob is with me.  Its just a fact of life for me. 

I also know it will take me considerably longer because Bob looks at everything whereas I can skip whole aisles.  I have no need to go down the pet aisle, we lost our furkid nearly six years ago and I don’t have to go down the baby aisle.  Cereal?  I don’t need to spend a lot of time there, all I have to do is look for the red box with the sea captain on the front.  Easy, done, move on.  Not so with Bob.  He doesn’t even eat cereal anymore but I swear he reads every box front to see who has new flavors or who is adding blueberries to the mix.

So we start.  Only one cart to start with but it will come to a point that we’ll need two.  Bob pushes the cart, its his job.

I get quite the workout while grocery shopping because he does look at everything and I’m going down the aisle picking up things I want and walking them back to deposit in the cart when I can’t carry anymore.  Back and forth, back and forth.  I’m already halfway down  the next aisle by the time he gets to the end of the first.

Three quarters way through the store and we need another cart.  Now here’s the part I don’t understand.  Its Bob’s job to push the cart and his job to go get another one when the first is to the point of overflowing.  Of course while he’s gone I’m continuing on with the shopping hoping to get out of the aisle he left me in to save time and keep Bob from looking at maybe as much as a half aisle of product.  I manage to do this.

He finds me and for some reason the heavy, nearly overflowing cart becomes mine and he’s pushing the empty one.  What’s wrong with this picture? 

On to the meat counter.  This is where the bucks really add up although I find the meat prices to be very good in the commissary.  I don’t know what is going on today but as soon as the meat department personnel put meat out on the counter there is a swarm of people grabbing it up as fast as its put down.  Is there a meat shortage that I don’t know about?  Will another pig never be slaughtered for pork chops again?  Are butchers going on strike?  I don’t have a clue but it isn’t hard to get caught up in the frenzy.  For awhile there the meat department people only had to roll the rolling shelf racks out and they were picked clean before they even had a chance to unload them.  Then suddenly it stopped and things went back to normal.  We had never seen anything like it.

Every aisle has been perused, (Bob) everything on my list has been deposited in one of two carts, and we have enough meat to last us quite awhile.  It’s off to checkout.

We arrived at the front of the store just as more checkers were opening up check out lanes so our wait was next to nothing.  It seemed to take forever to empty our carts.  Wow, did we really buy all this?  We questioned not only how were we going to get it all in the truck but where were we going to put it once we got it home.

We each took a guess on how much our bill was going to be.  Bob guessed $300 and I said closer to $350.  We did buy a $32.00 container of oil for our turkey fryer so that put the bill up there a bit and of course the extra $30 – $35 spent just because Bob was along.  Well, were we ever surprised when our cashier said,,,,,$411.53. 

Wait!  I have coupons!

So our bill was taken down by $11.25 but I’ll take it!  Four hundred bucks, for two people, what were we thinking?

So we load the truck and there were bags everywhere!  We get it home and unloaded and then the fun began, putting it away.

We decided we had to deal with the cold stuff first.  Since we bought family packs of meat or large cuts of meat we had to cut and repackage everything into meals for two.  We ended up with 36 meals worth of meat and some of those will provide leftovers for lunch the next day.

For the next 6 weeks or so we should only have to buy milk, bread and fresh veggies and fruit. 

And a turkey, we’re going to have to buy a turkey  but not until just before Thanksgiving because we have no room for it right now.

Our freezers are stuffed to the max and are working overtime to get everything frozen.  Our pantry has no room for anything, not even a small can of tomato paste.  We have three brown paper bags of stuff stored in a corner of the living room because we have no room to put it anywhere else.

So that was our shopping trip.  Three hours and four hundred bucks later.   Next time, I’m going alone!