Grocery Games

It’s a cold, gray, dreary day and John and I are in week two of quarantine. So I’ve come up with a couple of grocery games to pass the time.

The first game is “Take Stock of the Pantry”. With the procurement of groceries becoming hit-and-miss, it’s time to make good use of what’s already in the pantry. How old is the stuff lurking in there, anyway?

Here’s my entry for the oldest pantry item:

Does that say 2009? Yep, I’m thinking so. That’s over a decade ago! This baby went from Albuquerque to California and back. It’s probably been moved half a dozen times at least.

Narcisco to El Padro to Hampton, then possibly a week in Homesteads before going on to Calle la Paz, then to either Vista del Prado or back to Homesteads, then finally to Lawrence. I know that sentence made no sense – I was counting moves. This fine can of salmon resided in 6-7 houses.

We don’t eat canned salmon (obviously). I don’t remember buying it all those years ago. I was probably trying to buy tuna and goofed. At any rate, it was a long, long time ago. I can guarantee there’s no COVID-19 clinging to that can of salmon.

The second fun game I’ve been playing all week is “Online Grocery Checkout”. There are a variety of home delivery options available for grocery delivery, but the systems are becoming overwhelmed by the all the new customers. The delivery workers are overworked and underpaid and are talking about striking.

I’m trying to tip well, and I’ve also got gift cards taped to my door, but as a whole I think delivery services are being undervalued by consumers as well as by the companies in the delivery service.

I keep two different online grocery carts full – Whole Foods delivered by Amazon, and Sprouts delivered by Instacart. I periodically attempt to checkout. Invariably, there are no delivery time slots available to select. Except every once in a while there suddenly is a delivery slot available! Score! I quickly check out, not even remembering what might be in my cart. Hopefully not canned salmon.

Then groceries magically show up at my door; bags full of items that closely resemble the items I had at one point put in my online cart. I think the shoppers are doing a darn good job. It’s really hard to buy items that you aren’t familiar with. It takes forever trying to puzzle it out.

For example, do you have any idea how many different kinds of Rice Dream Rice Milk there are? There’s vanilla classic, and vanilla enriched, and original classic organic, and original enriched organic, and there’s original enriched organic unsweetened, and original enriched organic sprouted rice unsweetened, all in different sizes…there’s probably couple of dozen different variations at least, no seriously, it’s crazy. These are just a few of the options.

And that’s just rice milk. They also make coconut milk and almond milk with the same packaging, and presumably also all with various classic or enriched and/or unsweetened and/or organic options. It’s endless!

And someone making not nearly enough money is having to stand there in the virus-infested grocery store and figure it all out. And text their customer asking permission to make substitutions. And wait for a reply and then go back to that section after they get a reply. Or they don’t get a reply and they just have to make their best guess. Then they’ll have an irate customer, and then I don’t know what happens but I’m sure it’s not good.

I heard (I could be wrong, but I heard) that they are only making about $7-something per order, and it can take an hour and a half to shop and deliver. That is not enough money for all that work. So tip your help generously! And be understanding if it’s not as good as if you had gone to the store yourself.

Of course someone else’s shopping job won’t be perfect. But at least they aren’t bringing you canned salmon destined to be moved back and forth across the country for the next decade!