Sunday, October 6, 2013

Nine Dollar Grapes...

I have a feeling it might be a while before I live this down.

Yesterday I swung by the library and picked out some books for the upcoming week.  I'd spent a lot of time looking at books and I knew I needed to head home soon, but I still needed to pick a few things up at the store.  As I left the library parking lot I surveyed my options.  I thought about the grocery store we usually go to... but it's a town over and is always slammed full of kids from the university, and I really didn't feel like dealing with the huge lines that I knew they would have on a Saturday afternoon.

I could get on the freeway and drive north... but that didn't sound all that appealing either (there was actually another grocery store that I thought of later, but at that point I'd completely forgotten about it).

Besides, I'd always wanted to see what this store was like.  They have ads on the radio constantly.  There were descriptions of grass fed beef and it sounded fantastic.  And it was right on the way home.  So I pulled into the parking lot and got out of the van.

I walked into the produce section and glanced around.  There wasn't much there.  The produce section was probably twice the size of my kitchen.  Not impressive for any store, much less a health food store.  I glanced at apples.  Almost $9 for a 3 lb pag of apples.  Not happening.  But did I really want to get back in the car and get on the freeway.  I looked around desperate.  There were bananas that wouldn't cost me a kidney.  I picked up two bunches (Mae can eat a bunch in half an hour if we let her).  And then, impulsively I picked up a bunch of grapes and put it in the cart.  I didn't think to check the price (yeah, I know, dumb).

I walked through the rest of the store.  The meat section was pathetic (or maybe I should say non existent).  For all the advertising about "grass fed beef" there were four packages of ground beef that I finally found at ankle level in the frozen food section.  Most of what was there was totally processed "gluten free" stuff.  Gluten free fish sticks and chicken nuggets.  I sighed and turned away.

I did find an average priced bag of coconut flour that I'd been meaning to get, so I added that to my cart and laughed to myself about the insanity of a health food store who's supplement and vitamin section takes over a huge portion of the floor plan, while leaving a tiny bit of space for produce and meat, or anything that isn't totally processed and packaged.

By the time I made it to checkout I was desperate to get out of there.  I quickly paid and speed walked to the car.

Today it hit me.  How could it have been that much?  How much were those grapes?  I froze and fished the receipt out of the bag.

And I saw this:


Can you see it there on the bottom line, a bunch of grapes for $9.11?

I hope Paul got $9 of joy making fun of me for my shopping blunder.  And I can safely say... I know where I won't be shopping next time I go out!

4 comments:

  1. My husband did that once with grapes too. Grapes conventionally grown are expensive, organic it's out of this world, at least around here that's the case.

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  2. Man, the price of grapes is always unreal around here, which is silly to me, because literally the next province over (less than the distance from Atlantic City to New York City) is a vinyard that has never come up short on their own production quotas. It's wierd to me that more people in the region don't produce grapes but instead we import them at a premium from the USA and Mexico.

    Go figure.

    As for grass-fed beef and organic food, I'm probably guilty as charged on overspending, but I believe it to be worth it in the short term.

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  3. Ha! A mere $9 bag of grapes?

    Tell Paul it could be far, far worse. His wife could have forgotten about a student loan until it practically went into default.

    Yep, seriously.

    *sigh*

    In my defense, it was one that I took out about 7 years before the "forgetting" incident, and it was taken with a private company rather than through the Fed (like every single one of my other, completely-up-to-date loans were...), and the loan company apparently didn't bother to contact me at my current address and only, y'know, *CALLED* me as a last resort, and...

    But still. A bit awkward, to be sure...

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  4. I accidentally bought Parmesan cheese at Publix two nights ago without checking the price. I got home and realized it was $19.99! I returned it the next day.

    ReplyDelete

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