It's always a game of some sort at the Grocery store.

    So, grocery shopping is NOT my favorite task.  As much as I DO enjoy the moments of nobody interrupting my thoughts or needing to be put into time-out (I REFUSE to take children shopping with me, unless they are along for the express purpose of helping), there is still ALWAYS some silly game to play.  Some people enjoy those games, and occasionally I find them intriguing enough, when they save me substantial money, but most of the time I end up feeling yanked around, and only minimally triumphant, when I mange to 'win' at their game.  Today was one of those days.  I found that the spaghetti that I wanted to buy, had a coupon available for it.  Now, I'm not typically a big one on the coupon scene.  Our family eats a lot of produce and things that get made from scratch, and there just aren't that many coupons for produce and baking supplies, so I typically don't bother with coupons for the few pre-packaged items we do purchase.  But this one was for 75¢ off of a product that I was already buying, I was getting two, so total savings of $1.50.  It was worth the trip to the front of the store to retrieve the coupons from the little rack there, I guess.  I'm not sure, entirely, why one has to show the little torn piece of paper, to get the deal.  Why not just mark it down in price?  And it ended up that the coupon was only for ONE box, but I didn't realize that until I was already in line, and going BACK to the front AGAIN to get ANOTHER flyer, just didn't seem worth it.  Bother. 
Then there was the tater tots. First, I couldn't find the store brand ones, that I usually like, so I grabbed the Ore-Ida ones.  Then I noticed that the price on the 'Extra Crispy' ones was the same.  We like them crispy, so I put the others back and grabbed the Extra Crispy ones.  They were noticeably lighter in weight, so a quick check of the product details and proved that the 'regular' ones had nearly 1/3 more product for that 'same' price.  Bother.  Put the Extra Crispy ones back, got the regular ones, then went to get Hashbrowns, and discovered, there, next to the store-brand hash browns were the store-brand tater tots and they were considerably cheaper than even the regular Ore-Ida's, so another shuffle and I finally have what I wanted in the first place, in my cart.  
     So, even though I don't get interrupted by small people needing me to read spelling words for them, I find that grocery shopping is as much about learning to play the game and pay attention and get it right.  Fortunately, at my local Publix, the people who check you out, bag your groceries and help you to the car with them, so that they can bring in the cart for you, are all very gracious and pleasant to work with.  And when I get home, my kids KNOW that unloading and putting the groceries away is THEIR job, so that Mommy can go sit down and have a minute to get on facebook - um - no - I meant blog...  : )

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