I have said it before, and I will say it a million times more, I cannot stand grocery shopping in an unfamiliar supermarket.
I know my grocery store intimately. I know where everything is, I usually go there knowing what I’m looking for, and I have a hot route planned out. I may defer from my hot route from time to time to pick up extra things that I need, but I still know where things are, and I still know where I’m going.
My grocery store is familiar to me, and I am attached to it.
Here is what happens when I go shopping in my regular grocery store:
That is honestly close to my exact store layout, and my exact hot route. In and out, and I am a happy camper.
Here is what happens when I go to an unfamiliar grocery store:
I don’t know WhereTF anything is. Even if it’s a similar layout, I will spend hours looking for something ridiculous like salsa. I get out of there a hot and sweaty, annoyed and irritated mess.
Is it too much to ask for all grocery stores to be consistent? Honestly.
oh god, do you write out your grocery lists according to where you go first, like I do? crossing off items in the order I wrote them is so satisfying.
Ohh you bet I do! Actually I have a very handy list app for my iPhone and I organize everything according to department. It is beautifully all in order.
oh I’d be interested in that app!
btw my local supermarket puts the Zesta brand saltines in the soup aisle, not the cracker/generic brand saltines aisle. It took me ages to figure this out when I moved here, probably because IT MAKES NO SENSE.
It’s called ListPro! You can use it for other lists too (like to-do lists). I love it.
I think every grocery store has their own random places to put stuff. This is why I know my own so well but I’m lost everywhere else!
UGH I could not agree more! I hate searching for what seems like forever for something like PAM or olives or something random like that?!?
haha…I’m so the opposite
I shop at five (yep, five) different grocery stores, because:
a) I love finding new stores
b) I always look for the cheapest place to buy the things that I want
c) sometimes I shop for certain foods in bulk (I love Costco)
I have to admit, though. I discovered a new grocery store that’s basically an Asian market (read: very vegan-friendly), and I’m super stoked on it. But when I tried to find the tofu…holy eff. It should not be that friggin hard to find TOFU in an Asian market. I got a little worked up trolling the aisles looking for tofu
Sooo I kinda get you, haha. It drives me nuts how often Costco feels the need to reorganize, too. One day coffee is in aisle 3, the next it’s in aisle 12. Oyy.
I do love wandering around my own grocery store looking for new things, because it is huge and has everything. I spent 2 hours in there this morning. I just don’t like feeling like I’m lost! I get all flustered
Ha! I laughed out loud at your WTF picture. I love knowing the layout of my grocery store. While I can always figure out where the bread and carrots are, I start developing nervous ticks when I’m in a new grocery store looking for coconut milk or vegetarian soup stock. Knowing your grocery store also makes it MUCH easier to make a list!
Exactly! I like knowing! I didn’t even need a list today because everything I knew I needed was along my route.
Hahahaha I so agree with you!! Whenever I go to a new grocery store I freak the eff out and get so frustrated because I can’t find anything…grrr.
Hhahahha this post just made my morning! New grocery stores are so darn stressful… and then I find myself wandering around more than usual, I get lost, i am rather embarrassing when I have no idea where I am! Oh dear, not fun times
I sometimes feel like I am in another country, rather than just another grocery store.
Haha, I feel the same when when I go to new grocery stores, too…..especially the ones like Whole Foods, Trader Joes, etc. I always end up just wandering around and then make too many impulsive purchases and not enough useful ones!
We don’t have Trader Joes in Canada, and there is only a couple Whole Foods, so I have never been to either. I feel like they would overwhelm me!
I feel the same. We were at a grocery in NYC yesterday and I couldn’t find ANYTHING!!!!
Even chains like Whole Foods and our local Stop & Shop are completely different on town over. Drives me batty.
I know. Especially when you’re in a different branch of a store you always go to! One carries x brand and the other one doesn’t. So frustrating!
Grocery store variety is the spice of life. At least, I think that’s how that phrase goes.
That is just silly.
YES! THIS!!!
I stopped at an unfamiliar store to pick up a few things on the way home from work a few days ago, and it was the most awkwardly laid out store I have ever seen. For starters I could not find the produce section. I figured it must be somewhere near the front since that’s where it normally is, so I started systematically working my way around the periphery and through the aisles from front to back, assuming as any sane person would that the absolute last place anyone would put produce would be the back of the store.
Guess where it was? Yup. Thanks Lunds, you just wasted 10 minutes of my time with your ridiculously placed onions and butternut squash.
I was just going to come in here and say that your comment reminds me of Lunds. and then you went and said it!
It’s a weird shop, I agree.
I have never heard of Lunds! Sounds like I would not like it. Produce at the back of the store? What is that?
I feel the same way; I hate looking aimlessly for one item!!
Worse I hate stores that pose as grocery stores but don’t sell most of the things that I am looking for. I have a No Frills up the street from me and I despise it because I can’t find what I am looking for bc it isn’t there at all!! Grr!
No Frills is frustrating for that. They are just randomly missing stuff you think they would have. But they are cheaper…I will give them that.
Thank God someone else understands about the grocery store. My husband gets so annoyed with me cause I always have to go to the same store, he just doesn’t get it. I hate not knowing where everything is – I love knowing that aisle 7 is where the pasta is etc. I do the list in order of where I go first too, I love my lists.
I love how you renamed the treadmill to the treadbeast – that is so funny. What really had me laughing though was your Mental Vacation post. I am assuming you changed the photo to be you with your blonde hair and are you wearing your new Lulu Lemon Hoody? That picture of J Lo with the hair thing was pretty funny as well, I actually back tracked to it a few times cause it made me laugh each time.
As always you have cheered me up, I love reading your blog <3
Oh, good luck in the next round of Office Boccia. Being captain maybe you could bust out your awesome dance move to get the team going
It’s true. Boys don’t understand. I need MY grocery store!
Yes I did add the blonde hair and my new hoodie to that picture, hehe.
That JLo picture kills me and no one commented on it! I’m glad someone else found it as funny as I did!
As always, thanks for your comments Jane
I will have to break out the dance floor air guitar during our next Office Boccia match, if only to distract the opponents.
I HATE when I can’t find my way around the supermarket. It especially annoys me when it’s the same chain and they somehow have to stick out from the other ones in our area and be special with its own layout. When I lived in Charlotte we had a supermarket that had a map on each cart of the store, I thought that was pretty genius but again, I don’t like to think that much when I go to the store.
I would appreciate the map, but I feel like I would still be searching for something random that wasn’t listed on it. Every grocery store has their own weird place of putting things, for sure.
I have been slacking on any and all blog reading. Gah. This one made me laugh because I can relate to it, but only if it’s the same name grocery store. I absolutely adore exploring every inch of a new-to-me grocery store, but if it’s a superstore on the other side of town, I’m pissed beyond belief trying to find things. My grocery store is always down for a quicky — I am in and out of there in 10-15 minutes. It’s so true about getting hot and flustered and disheveled looking when you’re in an unfamiliar grocery store. Bahah. All grocery store chains should use the exact same blueprints and consistent product placements to please the easily annoyed shoppers like us.