The Fight Starter
January 12, 2009 by The Constant Complainer
Welcome to the award winning blog of The Constant Complainer.
Before I get started with today’s post, I’d like to answer an e-mailed question I received through the site. A reader asked why I always start each post out with the exact same sentence. The answer is twofold. First, I say that my blog is “award winning” because it is. The Constant Complainer was voted “Best Local Blog” in a “Best of Cleveland 2008” readers’ poll conducted by Cleveland Scene. The Constant Complainer also received a “Blog of the Day Award” from Famous Blogs in 2008. Finally, I find that starting each post out with the same sentence adds to the consistency of the site. I hope that answers your question, Rachel. I figured I’d rather answer it than complain about it…
I don’t like going to the grocery store. I avoid it like the plague unless I absolutely have to go. At home, my wife and I split up the household responsibilities equally. Grocery shopping falls on her list and that’s fine with me.
If going to the grocery store was on my list of responsibilities, I’d be the guy who is there on Friday nights at 10 p.m. I don’t goof around there and like to get in and out. Of course I’m the one that comes home with the not-so-great cereals and the bags of Oreos, but hey, for the most part, I get the job done when I have to go.
Anyhow, the way schedules worked out, I ended up having to go yesterday. After being there for 15 minutes, I remembered why I don’t like going. I put what we needed in my cart and headed up to the checkout line, only to stand there for another 25 minutes waiting to get through the line. What upset me is that this is a national chain grocery store at 10 a.m. on a Sunday morning. They had 25 checkout lanes, but only two were open. And of the two that were open, one was an express lane for 12 items or less and the other regular lane had no bagger. These were the longest grocery store lines I have ever seen in my life. Oh, let me back up, they did have four lanes open where you could self-checkout by scanning and bagging your own items. But those were no help, because the customers who were using those had 100 items in their cart, just like I had. So those lanes were even slower than normal.
The most interesting part of my adventure (and why I titled today’s post what I did) was that I saw two seemingly happy couples get into fights while standing in the checkout line. One couple was directly behind me. The wife was complaining about the long lines and the guy yelled, “Well, you keep coming here. You keep coming here.” They argued back and forth and ultimately decided to use the self-checkout lane. Another couple was in the lane next to me and they had already been bickering back and fourth when the wife yelled out, “I fail to see how this is my problem.” I left before they did, but they were still ignoring each other at the time of my departure. I love it – you go to the grocery store and get into a fight with your spouse! It was aggravating for me too, but I didn’t have anyone to yell at with me. That’s good I guess, because I wasn’t getting yelled at either.
As much as I didn’t want to, I used the self-checkout lane, only to have it break down twice. Then I had to wait for the one employee working in that area to come and reset it. Maybe I shouldn’t shop at this store, but I just don’t trust the smaller stores or the mom-and-pop grocery stores to have non-expired products.
On another note, for those of you living in snow-covered areas, like here in Cleveland – I’d like to tell you how dangerous it is to be out there driving without properly cleaning off your car first. I can’t tell you how many morons I saw today with their windows scraped, but who still had 9″ of snow piled up on their roof. When that starts to melt and falls off, it is an accident waiting to happen…
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====They had 25 checkout lanes, but only two were open. And of the two that were open, one was an express lane for 12 items or less and the other regular lane had no bagger.====
This is clearly George Bush’s fault. When Obama becomes President, I’m sure he’ll “change” this…CHANGE IS COMING.
Otis, let’s try and keep politics out of this for once, shall we? Oh wait, pretty soon your buddy Neo Con Don will chime in and then you two can have a polital lovefest. Am I right or am I right?
CC, I hate to rain on your parade, but one of the highlights of my/our week is going grocery shopping. We don’t argue. We don’t fight. We just go shopping, together…well I just push the cart and she shoppes and buys the food we need for the upcoming week. I would recommend that all the nonshopper on the blog should just agree. When I shop, I buy what my wife tells me to buy…and a little of this and a little of that. Needless to say, she likes to go with me when I shop. But, I like to go with her when she shops too. She asks me what I would like. I get a say in what she will serve during the upcoming week.
Re-read Zig’s last post and convince me that George Bush is as stupid as Zig “thinks” he is…??? Maybe Zig is going for a post in Obama’s administration. Has anyone seen the idiot-fest he’s putting up? Zig, you’ll fit right in.
Zig, I refuse to believe that all of your grocery shopping visits are incident free. I refuse to believe that you never encounter lines, lack of baggers, crowds and/or problems. They are there. You just don’t want to admit it!
Isn’t it obvious to anyone else that Zig is whipped? Clearly he just does what the wife tells him to. Probably not a bad idea considering if he actually put his foot down every now and then they’d get into a big argument. But you know, being a wimp and avoiding every single fight will not prevent the “bad times” from happening. So Zig, look your wife in the eyes, tell her you’re not going to be her little slave anymore, and take back those things you used to call balls.
Just kidding Zig.
And why the hell does Otis have to try and turn this into an Obama thing??? Not gonna happen.
Mike, thanks for the advise, but you are not married! Marriage is a lot easier when “the husband” does what “the wife” wants, when she is standing right next to him! And my “Balls” are very well taken care of!
CC, the lines, baggers and crowds are there, but I realize that before going. I can’t stand lines, baggers or crowds, but I like to EAT!
I agree with the frustrations of going to the grocery store. Just this past Sunday my husband and I were on our way to my parents house for a family get together. I needed to pick up cool whip and Giant Eagle is two minutes from our house so we stop there on our way. I thought I would be in an out in less than 5 minutes. Yeah right! The store was packed and very few lines were open. I had one item and the 12 item or less line was the longest line in the store. The self-checkouts were the shortest lines so thats where I ended up and I thought it would go quickly. It turns out the guy in front of me was buying just about one of everything from the produce section and the idiot had no clue how to ring it up on the register. The lady from the checkouts came over and helped him when the light started flashing but then she disappeared only to have to come back a few more times before he was finished. So the one item I went in to buy took me almost 45 minutes to purchase!! That is ridiculous!
CC,
For the longest time I did all the grocery shopping. Also did all the cooking. Recently the wonderful woman in my life decided that we should go after work, because the BEst grocery store in the world is on the way home, and opposed to the one shopping cart store we have downtown, the produce is amazing, and the prices are much better.
We do very well if we shop off a list, and have planned meals, the issue comes when there are two lil teenyboppers at the end of the line chewin the fat like they were sittin on their porch. We walk past them and go to a line that is moving (theirs is empty) all because they do not ask “Are you ready to check out?” But the older (by older for this store I am talking 26 to 35 crowd it seems) are always attentive and anticpating our need to check out.
It is one thing to only have a few lines open, but to walk out to the end of your line to herd in the shoppers, and then be inattentive to their needs is just as annoying. I would rather wait in line
Tallelf, again..is their a point to your post, i.e. a gripe or a legitimate complaint? All of the readers of this blog understand that you don’t write well, but you try. You should be complimented on your efforts to try to appear to be an educated man. By using longer words and parenthasis incorrectly and without the proper spacing, the end result you seek is not totally realized!