I might be one of the only people in the world that actually enjoys bringing their kids to the grocery store. It's not the easiest place to corral them but it is a great place to teach them a few life lessons. They do learn a lot in school, which is great, but there is only so much that you can learn from behind the desk and I feel some of the best lessons can be learned while shopping for life's essentials.
The first thing that you learn is that life can be really confusing. There are a lot of choices to make and choosing the right one is key. Take toilet paper for example; it's not all about the simple math that you might learn in school, there are some pretty complex equations that you are going to come across. Do you go with 24 double rolls or 12 mega rolls? Either way it adds up to 48 regular rolls, which I have NEVER seen in my life so I can't really compare it to that. When both cost the same, how do you know that you are choosing the right one? One is ultra strong and the other is ultra soft so that is no help. I spend about 10 minutes every time I go to the store going back and forth between the two before I ultimately choose the 24 pack.
The next thing that you learn is that life just doesn't make sense sometimes. Look at how celery is packaged; are we ever going to use THAT much celery? I have never needed more than one or two stalks yet for some reason celery packagers continue to put entire celery plants inside of a plastic bag. Every other vegetable you can buy by the pound or individually, but for some reason celery, a vegetable that NEVER gets used, you are forced to buy a dozen or more of. It has to be some sort of conspiracy by farmers forcing celery on us. I really have no explanation as to why this is the case, it will just go on to be one of life's biggest mysteries.
The third lesson that you learn is that most of the time when you are in a rush, you will end up waiting. It never ceases to amaze me that the slowest checkout people work in the express lane. I don't know if they put people in that lane that can only count to seven, twelve, or fifteen, but every time I use the express lane it seems that I stand watching all of the other lanes zip through while I am stuck with the cashier that doesn't know the UPC Code for broccoli. You want to get out of a store quickly? Always find the longest line because that line will have the store manager step in and they know every code like they know their own phone number. So while Greta in the express lane is putting her glasses on to read the code for the grapes that you bought, your lanes scanner is beeping like a heart monitor.
The last lesson is that you will notice that there are some very lazy people in this world. They are the ones that constantly fail to put their carts away and leave them scattered all over the parking lot. Why is this such an issue? Every dent that you have on your car is because some lazy person at the grocery store did not put their cart in the little cart corral. These carts have wheels and when they are not attended to they have a tendency to roll right into the door panel of your vehicle. Why people cannot walk their carts 15 feet and put them away is something I will never understand. Society has become very lazy and I will not let my kids continue this trend. The following Public Service Announcement is THE MOST IMPORTANT THING my kids can learn at the grocery store:
Please, I beg all parents to teach their kids this very important message. Who knows, one day our world might be a dent free place for all of us to enjoy.
