Have you ever gone to the grocery store and the checkout clerk is looking at you strangely as she rings up your purchases? I was at my local Trader Joe’s (love them: except the snotty check out girl) stocking up on a few of my favorite things:
• Six containers of hummus, various flavors
• 1 large “party size” salsa, mild
• 2 packages of black beluga lentils
• 1 bag of Thai Lime Pilaf.
• EnviroKidz Organic Peanut Butter Panda Puffs (give me a break: it was the only gluten free cereal they had and I was craving cereal)
• Almond milk, unsweetened chocolate
Now I admit I have a hummus fetish. And TJ’s has some of the best store bought hummus I’ve ever had. My new favorites include: Cilantro Jalapeño and Roasted Red Pepper. The Cilantro Jalepeno has just enough of a kick to make you want to have a 32 oz bottle of water handy. The Roasted Red Pepper is very mild but the color and taste remind me of Pimento Cheese which was one of my mother’s favorite spreads as I was growing up.
So the check out girl says, “You like hummus?”
Duh. I’m not buying it for the cats.
“How do you eat it?”
So many smart aleck comments came to mind. I settled for my standard answer, “With a spoon.”
“No,” she continued. “I mean what do you eat it on?”
I stared at her, not blinking. “A spoon. Why do you think I need six containers of it??”
Honestly. I mean: I get that it is an odd list of groceries. But it isn’t like she followed me to the liquor store (my next stop) and watched me pick up a bottle of Cask & Cream Caramel then followed me home and spied on me as I actually ate dinner from the fixings of my two stops.
If she’d seen me mixing Cask & Cream into my unsweetened chocolate milk and then pour it over the EnviroKidz Organic Peanut Butter Panda Puffs after spooning hummus up with broccoli florets – see I’m eating healthy here – maybe then she’d have been justified to look at me strange.
Know what I’m mean??
Tags: LJ's Story, Nutrition, Tangent
I truly believe that all grocery stores should train their checkers not to comment on people’s food. I get a comment almost every single time I go shopping. My favorite generic comment is: “Do you like that stuff? Or better yet, fo you eat that stuff?
No, I’m just preventing someone else from having to eat it.
Once a bagger asked me if I liked some expensive thing that I had bought on a whim from the deli. “Well, I have never tried it, but I thought it looked interesting.”
“Well, I tried it for lunch and thought it was disgusting.”
Nice. Thanks. What am I really supposed to do with that information now that it’s in my bag? (Note: I actually like it, despite her less than stellar endorsement).
I have actually stopped shopping at that store, because I am routinely made to feel like a fool for one thing or another. Perhaps I should develop thicker skin to match my obviously extraterrestrial taste buds.