Slaying the Grocery Shopping Dragon

Going grocery shopping depresses me! Even just thinking about going depresses me.

I know they say you should slay your dragons before lunch  – whoever “they” are.  And I do realize that if I made the list on Friday night, I could hit the store first thing Saturday morning – and be done, long before lunch. And yet, I procrastinate.

Because, I hate it.

I hate the whole kitandkaboodle, from planning out meals, to checking stock on paper goods and dog food and toiletries, to the physical shopping, to the putting away stage.

The whole process seems both mundane and laborious and I grumble like I’m having a root canal.

I whine, “I don’t want to check for everything we need”.  But, I also don’t like hearing  – “we’re completely out of toilet paper”. So, use tissues. But we’re out of those too. That usually happens the day after I just went shopping.

Sometimes I daydream about what it would be like to be on the receiving end. To just casually use the last squirt of my toothpaste, then nonchalantly reach into the drawer and pull out another full tube from my perfectly stocked bathroom drawer. No thought about who the magic toothpaste fairy is, just a false sense that this is how the world works, right?

But, it’s not just the list making that gets to me, it’s also the menu planning. I’m trying to eat healthy but the rest of my family is not. So, I buy lots of fruits and veggies but also Captain Crunch. For dinner I’d just assume have a piece of grilled chicken and salad, but I also need a side heaping of fat filled carbs to make them happy.

Then of course, there are preferences. He likes this. She doesn’t. Everyone loves this but of course, it doesn’t fit on my diet and it takes about 3 hours to make.

I think we should all just eat bread and water. But, bread isn’t on my diet, so I guess it’s just water for me.

After all that, I finally arrive at a quasi list. Which, of course, I don’t trust because as much as I fear I’ll forget something, I inevitably do. So, I arrive at the store with more or less, a “guideline” of sorts. I still must go down the canned foods aisle to realize I probably need tomato sauce if I’m making spaghetti. And thus it continues throughout the store aisle by aisle with far too many “oh yeah” moments than I would like. My brain hurts. I don’t want to think this hard.

Why can’t I be more like a man, just buy what’s on the list? Nothing more. Nothing less. Let the chips fall where they may. Pun intended.

But, I press on. The actual physical part of this experience has now grown to include two stores because Sprouts has better meat and produce, but Wal-Mart has better other stuff.

Then I, or some other configuration of family members, carry in groceries and leave a mound of bags around me in the kitchen that makes one wonder if we were stocking up for the apocalypse. It is at this point I realize that the refrigerator is still full with leftovers from last week. Oh goodie. Thus begins Operation Dump and Rearrange.

When the last item from the last bag is finally put away and the tooth paste fairy magically restocks the bathroom drawers, I collapse into a heap. At least until I hear someone ask, “What’s for dinner?” and I realize I just froze all the meat I bought.

What’s your least favorite chore to slay?