Grocery Store Woes

I HATE grocery shopping. Everything about it.

A few weeks back I reached a breaking point with the store we had been shopping at for several years. This is the store with tons of crap in every aisle. I complained about it and they made an effort to cut back for a week or two and then returned to blocking shelves with fixtures - so annoying. They frequently don't have the shelves properly stocked. They frequently have items on the shelves that are expired. I saw the produce guy set a dirty bin on top of the lettuce. And, what pushed me over the edge, when trying to buy tofu, I found all of the packages were going to expire that day and they all had mold on them, as did the fixture they were housed on.

I just couldn't do it any more. Grocery shopping sucks enough for someone with chronic pain without having to deal with crap like that. Fortunately, hubby and I found a good alternative close to our house. This store has it's own problems. For example, the fish counter is right next to the prepared food area and bread, which means the fish smell chases me out of these areas faster than I would like. And the lighting is significantly more obnoxious than the other store.

Not exactly migraine friendly but I'll take clean and fresh over better lighting any day.

On the flip side this new store is doing a lot of things right. The aisles are all clear so everything is easily accessible. The produce is good enough. They keep the ginger away from the water sprayers so it's never wet and molding (this is the first store I've ever been to that keeps the ginger properly dry). Plus they allow me to bag my own groceries - I never like the way the baggers do it.

The thing is no matter where I shop, no store is able to meet all my needs. We buy some stuff at Costco, some stuff at Trader Joe's, some stuff at Whole Food and some stuff at the regular grocery store, which for now is Shop N Save. Even with all this running around, I still can't get everything I want. Oh how I wish it wasn't so complicated.

Maybe one day Wegmans or Hy-Vee will come to the greater St. Louis area.