Crazy Tuna Fish Lady

People tease my brother Winston about being so nostalgic that he is allergic to any sort of change. Oh, maybe not to his face - sorry Winston, if you didn't know. But it's true. You want everything to be the way it was when you were seven years old. I feel a little bad saying, it, but not too bad, as I don't think you read this blog.

Anyway, it turns out that Winston is not the only one resistant to change. Read carefully. I am about to document a breakdown.

I have begun the long process of planning two separate vacations, to be taken over the next couple of years. And although both trips are still in the planning stages, it has become obvious that the biggest issue for both of them is money. Plane tickets are expensive, folks.

As are gymnastics lessons, piano lessons, karate memberships, and pre-school. None of which I am willing to give up. Yet.

And so I am forced to look at the other places we spend our money. We need a house. We need a car. The one place I consistently spend money is the grocery store. And although I realize I cannot expect my family to stop eating, I took a hard look at the way I was spending my money.

I buy my groceries at a specific store. I drive out of my way to do it. I simply like the store better than the others. But I do recognize that there may be other places I can buy our groceries more cheaply.

One of these grocery store, I shall call it The Cheap Store, is across the street from where I like to shop. (We'll call that: The Old Store.) I usually avoid The Cheap Store because, not only have I found the inside dirty and disorganized when I have gone in, but the people who shop there seem, somehow, to have fewer brain cells than a lot of society. I shouldn't say this - I don't mean it. I mean, Lillian sometimes shops there, the same store and different locations, and she has found it to work for her. And I know that I haven't met any of the people who push their carts directly in front of my moving vehicle. But for some reason, at this particular store, I assume everyone in the place is mentally deficient.

But I recognize that this is not real. This is a bias on my part.

And since my grocery bills seem to be climbing higher, despite checking diapers off our list, I decided to give it a try.

Now, I need to explain here that part of the reason our grocery bills are higher have to do with the items I buy. I have, of late (but wherefore I know not?) started buying organic and naturally grown food items. I try to avoid plastic packaging. I make an effort to buy local. I buy more expensive soaps that are fragrance and paraben free. After more than an year of exploring and trying and getting used to, Steve and I had a heart to heart, and I decided to scale it back a bit. And I have. In certain places.

But still, I gave The Cheap Grocery Store a try.

I knew I would have trouble. I am a very organized person. I always use a list, and I make that list, without thinking about it, so that the items I need appear in the order I will run into them as I walk through The Old Grocery Store. I knew that The Cheap Store was laid out differently, and I also knew they might not have certain things I wanted or was used to getting.

Within ten minutes I was pacing the produce department, looking for the bananas that were not in plastic bags. Seriously, every single bunch was in a plastic bag for some reason. My Old Store has them in free bunches. I was more upset than I should have been over a plastic bag.

I had a hard time finding meat. I have started buying meat from animals never given antibiotics, a line My Old Store has under the store's natural food line, and at The Cheap Store only high priced meat packing brands were available for much more than even I was willing to spend.

They didn't have my cat litter in the big cardboard boxes, only the smaller plastic jugs.

They didn't have my Tikka simmer sauce at all.

Everything was laid out so differently I was so confused. The meat is all stretched out along a wall, so you need to walk around the store three times unless you know exactly where everything is.

I was unable to find any natural or earth friendly beauty products at all. Not even the Suave Fragrance Free stuff the kids use.

And before I knew it, I realized I was so upset I was almost crying. I was passing aisles of sugar cereal, cookies, bottle water - WATER, for crying out loud. It should be illegal to sell that stuff in plastic bottles. And the people I was passing.... this sounds awful, but the people in My Old Store, they look kind of like me. I look more like them. No, this isn't a race thing. It's... I want to say it's a health thing. There were a LOT of overweight people. A lot of people coughing with really bad complexions. Yes, I know it's the middle of the day and a lot of people are at work. But still.

So, I worked myself up to a tizzy, wondering why I was even here. It was cleaner than I remembered. They had fixed the store up, but was it worth it? I mean, I was in tears, and there were twenty people in the deli line. I was crying in the grocery store because I had to walk back and get the cheeze-its. (They are in the same aisle as the baby food for some reason.) I was like the Crazy Tuna Fish lady from that Christopher Durang monologue! You know the one, and if you don't, you probably have heard it because EVERYONE has heard that one. I mean, that lady is just so crazy and neurotic! Nobody is like that.

Except me.

I felt crazy. Honestly. That's as honest as I can be. It suddenly hit me that I was the odd one. I am the crazy lady who needs such strange items they don't even carry them in a normal grocery store. Who wants bananas, but not in a plastic bag! They must all think I am a lunatic. And I kind of feel like one.

When I checked out, it was $100 less than a good day at My Old Store. I bought pretty much the same stuff, only leaving out a few things. ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS. That's a lot of cash to not spend every week.

But I still feel wrong. I feel out of place. And it makes me so tired. It's just a GROCERY STORE for goodness sake! This is a tiny little thing. We ended up with most of the same items. And financially, it makes so much more sense. But there is a little voice in my head screaming "No! No!"

So... Sorry, Winston. I win.