Opinion : The Grocery Grab Bag

Oh alright, I admit it. I sometimes shop at Wal-Mart after 10:00 p.m. when I need to take a drive and get a few specialty things that I can't get here in town.

I'm also on a eat a bit healthier kick. So, on my way out the Wal-mart door, I saw Honeycrisp apples and I love Honeycrisp apples. So I grabbed a couple and hit the check out.

I hopped in my car and headed home. I unpacked the small haul but I couldn't find my Honeycrisp apples. I checked the bags again. I checked the car. Nothing...then I remembered that I had set them aside so that I wouldn't smash them in my cart.

Sighing I realize that that was three bucks down the drain, and this is why I don't eat my fruits and veggies.

Not giving up I went to another store a few weeks later and grabbed some raspberries. Just one container. Those little babies aren't cheap.

I load all of the bags on my one arm, because who's with me? I'd rather carry 20 bags on one arm and permanently damage it than make another trip to the car!

I unload the groceries. Drooling in the bags looking for my raspberries. They didn't make the trip. Again checking the car, looking under the seats, no raspberries.

I sigh, I ponder returning and asking where they are. and figure, again, another three bucks down the drain, and still no fruit in the diet.

I'm really a glutton for punishment. I can't remember what I went to Wal-mart for this time, oh, yeah, again something I couldn't get here, and I bypassed the fruit aisle. Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, well, shame on me again, but they aren't going to get me a third time I swore...

...but they did.

I arrive home, unload the bags to see 3 cans and a small container. Playing the "What could that be? What did I get in a small can?" I peered in the back, racking my brain for everything on my list but not one of them came in small cans.

Perplexed I reach in and pull out three cans of sliced mushrooms and a small container of ranch dip.

I KNOW I didn't buy those. I know I didn't put them in the bag, and for sure they weren't on my list. I am guessing that the person in front of me did the same thing that I did.

Or did they?

Is this Wal-mart's way of making me LOVE the "Scan and go", scheme trying to convince me that it really does speeds things up. So far I've spent more time playing "hide and go seek", and "guess what's in bag number 1." Or maybe with Christmas on their mind they are throwing in a mix of fun and mystery as well as a Food Network game show called, "The grab bag grocery exchange" where contestants must survive on what actually makes it back to their homes. Will it be what's on their list? Or will it be what was on someone else's list???

I don't know. All I know is that I try. I try really, really hard to eat my fruits and veggies. If only I could get them home.

Now, to make these mushrooms to taste like raspberries or Honeycrisp apples...maybe the secret is in the ranch dip...