Dear Local Grocery Store Manager,
Why, oh why, oh WHY must you rearrange the grocery store? I was quite happy with the former location of all grocery items. In fact, I was so pleased and familiar with the store’s layout that I made my weekly grocery list in order of store aisles. I was the confident customer to whom other shoppers addressed their questions: “Excuse me, do you know where I’d find Mahatma Rice?” “Where do you think they keep the corn syrup?” Yes sir, I could answer any question thrown at me.
And now, I walk into your store and… I am lost. The canned peaches are where the diapers used to be. The cereal has scooted over and down a bit. The Mahatma Rice? No clue. And the baby/toddler aisle appears to be missing completely.
Perhaps you’ve done this in an effort to encourage me to exercise. After all, I get to the end of the store and realize I missed five items from my list, and then must retrace my steps up and down each and every aisle, hoping to find the elusive nonperishables. If my physical fitness was your motivation, I appreciate your efforts but really, it’s backfiring. Because after scouring the store two or three times, I end up throwing Klondike bars in the cart out of frustration and a need for chocolate + ice cream.
What’s worse is that you keep moving things. The last three times I’ve been in the store, things have been in three different locations. Hello? Pick a spot and stick with it.
And then publish a map of the store so I can find things and figure out how to organize my shopping lists.
And then never ever move things around again.
Thanks.
Sincerely,
A very confused customer
Dear L.,
I can appreciate that you’ll be doing the whole “language thing” at your own pace. At almost-2, you have only a handful of words — a situation that might alarm some moms. But I can practically see wheels turning in your head, so I know it’s all just a matter of time.
Anyway, I just wanted to thank you for including the word “Uh-oh” in your limited repertoire. This word comes in very handy. Now, when you go into the other room to play while I’m surfing the Internet cleaning, I don’t have to wonder if you’re getting into things. I just have to listen.
As soon as I hear “uh-oh,” I know to come running. Because something has surely happened.
So, thanks for that.
Love,
Mom
Dear Person Working in Our Basement,
I understand that carrying supplies up and down the basement steps approximately 30 times is exhausting. I completely get the fact that you’d feel winded after doing so. I wasn’t surprised at all when you told me you needed to take a minute to catch your breath. But let me assure you that immediately smoking a cigarette may not be the best way to help your lungs recover from that little activity.
Best wishes,
A concerned observer
Oh, I do love it when you write these kind of posts, they make me giggle. Missed you and L. at lunch yesterday.
Dear Katrina:
Don’t you know, that I the grocery store owner/millionare don’t want you to know where everything is all the time. When you know where things are you tend to miss all the other stuff out there in my lovely store. This way you are forced to go down each and every aisle and peruse things you would never glance at otherwise. Read: you will buy more things and do more impulse shoping. Anyway, thanks for you letting me know how you feel. And happy spending.
Yours truly,
SpendMore Marketing Firm
on behalf of millionare owner
I looove the uh oh word, it tells so much! LOL.
Hysterical post!!
Thanks for the smile…I couldn’t agree more about the store relocating food repeatedly!!
I bet you are shopping at Walmart! They do that to confuse customers & employees alike!
It is like someone sneaking in to rearrange your kitchen without your knowledge…THE GALL! I have had that happened also, very frustrating. Don’t they know we are people of routine, and with kids…want to get in and get out!
I love the one about L.. When my youngest was 2 1/2, she still was taking her sweet time with using words other than uh-oh and NO!, but I could tell that she was taking everything in. We were at the doctor’s office one day, and she was refusing to make any sound in response to his questions at all. Finally exasperated, he asked me, “Can she at least put 2 words together like a sentence?” I turned and asked her the question, and she replied, “No, but can say all my ABCs in the right order. Would HE want to hear that?” I thought the doctor would pass out after she spewed that mouthful. I assure you that the words never stopped flowing after that.
I think your grocery store guy is in cahoots with mine and I couldn’t agree with your letter more. Maybe it’s a conspiracy to make us buy more impulse products as we wander through the grocery store.
have a good day!
Thist totally cracked me up.
I too feel the exact same way and let me tell ya….ours is rarranged so much even the employees don’t seem to know where anything is anymore…..
I love these posts!!
Very funny and apt observations.
You’ve still got it.
I loved the post.
On behalf of your basement employee and as a reformed smoker, I feel obliged to tell you this.
When you are a smoker and you actually exercise or exert yourself enough to puff and pant, you MUST smoke in order to regulate the inhale/exhale pattern.
Thanks for letting me air this.
I feel your pain, literally, since we shop at the same place and I too am foaming at the mouth every time I go in there. I was at the stage where I stopped, picked up a coffee, got out my little list and enjoyed the experience, but I’m back to the rabid dog stage. I’ve heard / read that they purposely move the items to make you go up and down aisles, which generates sales. The longer you are in there the more you spend. So we’re all in there longer, spending more, kidding ourselves that we’re saving because of their dump gas perks – right!
If only Sweet Chloe Rose would utter “uh oh!”, many pairs of shoes could have been saved!
Dear grocery store manager,
Ditto. What Katrina said.
Please.
Love these! Especially the grocery store one. I just wrote a Dear Sen. Obama letter on my personal blog All That Naz. I grew up in a rural PA town. Thanks for the fun!
The letter to the grocery store manager is so funny and true that I would actually send it to them. They need a good laugh too, I’m sure.
I remember Perry’s vocabulary was so limited until he was well over 2… just you wait!
Very funny post – I love your observations!
I laughed out loud at these.
Of course, you know the grocer is mighty pleased that you are frustrated enough to buy Klondike bars, ice cream and anything else not on your list. That’s one reason they do that. Makes me crazy.
Especially since I’m one of these that tends to write my list in the order that the store is laid out.
The other two were just as hilarious. Catching his breath, huh?
Kinda like a kid saying “I’m full. What’s for dessert”
I LOVE your sense of humor, thanks for making us laugh!!
Um, yeah – have those meanies who rearranged the store realized that the reason you were coming to that store is because you knew where things were and could get in and out quickly while lugging kids around! I move at breakneck speed – getting things from there memorized places – that way the kids don’t have time to ask for this that or the other. When they move things they make my 20 minute trip a 35 min. trip and the kids drive me CRAZY!
I am guessing Walmart? When they were updating the one in our town, I avoided it for months. Couldn’t find anything!
the letter about the cigarette cracked me up!
I hate it when they rearrange the grocery store! It’s all based on some computerized models that show that salsa sells better if it’s placed next to black beans, so they move it. Then next week they realize it really needs to be in the chips section. So they move it again.
Then they realize that what women really want is for the sanitary pads to be right near the checkout, so they’re the last thing we pick up, so we don’t have to walk throughout the store with Kotex in our carts.
Or whatever.
I have shopping lists made up according to the map of the store, and when they move things around I get really mad. I have to redo my lists. Grrrr.
Visit To Love, Honor and Vacuum today!
These are hilarious!
That’s hysterical! I love that. I have a crazy busy two year old boy too; and his favorite word is no. I can so relate! Thanks for sharing. I loved your post about C. too. Very Nice.