I just have to talk about this. My mind is still so impressed with my shopping experience.Grocery shopping has always been synonymous with hell for me. For 25 years, this chore has been my responsibility. Any shopping for me is an unpleasant experience, but the hunting for, and purchasing of food is a mission to the dark side.
- Find all required items
- Find a safe spots for them in the cart, bring full cart to check-out
- Remove all items from cart, carefully arranging like items on the belt so that you can bag them together.
- Put items in the plastic bag after cashier scans them
- Put all ten/fifteen plastic bags in your cart
- Put all ten/fifteen plastic bags in your car
- Remove ten/fifteen plastic bags - 3 trips - to the kitchen, finding places to put them all so you can unpack them efficiently. On the counter? On the floor? My preference is to unpack from the floor, onto the counter, put the bags away, THEN put items away from the counter, thus removing the need to open fridge multiple times, etc.
- Remove items from bags
- Put items away
- Deal with plastic bags. (I usually fold mine nice and flat, and put with the other 465 bags in the closet)
TEN HORRIBLE STEPS, and more if you have to clean out the fridge before you can fit anything new in there, which usually means a sink full of bowls and containers and a trip out to the garage to empty the now stinky trash.
Well, somebody, bless their hearts, was REALLY using the old noggin. Paul had been telling me about the 'wand' at Stop & Shop. So. This morning I was feeling hungrier than usual, and asked Paul if he wanted to go get some breakfast and then grocery shopping. Paul is heading out for the west coast tomorrow and will not only not be here to eat next week, but won't be here to do the shopping either. So it was today, or I starve next week. And I wanted to check out this wand thing he and X had talked about. He, being Mr. Smart Man that he is, had picked up the reusable bags, which I, Ms. Smart Woman, put back in his car after I unloaded them last weekend when he came back. So we were prepared. We headed out.
The place we had planned to breakfast at was packed, so we headed on in the direction of the grocery store, hoping we'd find another place, and sure enough. We found a charming old place. It also serves lunch & dinner, and has a lounge where there is live music...looks like they may have some local (ish) talent nightly, maybe some folksy stuff. Paul & I liked it very much, and we sure will be back for dinner and a little music.
So after a generous portioned breakfast, we took our satiated bellies off to Stop & Shop. On the way in I grabbed two pots of corn flowers. Paul was waiting inside with the carriage, and I plopped them right in. He looked at me and said, "Um, not much room left for food?" I replied that between our lack of hunger and a cart already half full, we should do okay.
As I was pushing the cart, I looked at one of the blooms on the corn flower plant, and there was the cutest spider I had ever ever seen! I HATE spiders. But when I noticed her, we were eye to eye, and she was just so darn sweet. She had big eyes, but markings that looked like Charro eyelashes, quite big and thick. She was a daddy long legs variety, and not creepy at all. She stayed with us, very still, as we trekked up and down the aisles. I was wishing I had a camera so I could take a picture of just how cute she was there. As soon as I hit outdoors, though, she perked up. And by the time I was unloading the bags into the car, I couldn't find her. Paul looked at me and with a chuckle, took her off my shoulder. Let me say again. I HATE spiders. However, I was not in the least bit spooked by this one. Weird. He put the spider down and set her free.
Anyway, I sure do leave the point of my story behind.
By the time we left the store, I was smiling, and raving about those very smart people who had streamlined the shopping experience and made is sensible. We put our green bags in the cart, (kind of squished between corn flowers), and started. We picked up some apples, put them on the scale, punched in the item code, and a tag printed out for us. We put the apples in the thin clear plastic bag off the roll, and stuck the tag on it. Scanned the tag with the wand. Grapes were on sale - $1.49 @ lb. Nice. They were pre-bagged, so we just scanned the SKU on the bag. Onward. Each item we picked up, we scanned the SKU, and put it in the bag in the cart. Like items altogether, just the way I prefer. When we were finished we pulled into line, with our groceries already bagged, and when our turn came, we simply handed the wand to the cashier. The only thing she had to scan was a bag of coffee that Paul had ground from the beans. She magically transferred the information from our wand to her cash machine, and voila. There was our total. (Another convenience of the wand - while you are shopping, you can keep a running total.) Paul paid, and I walked out with my cart of groceries, and my cute spider, and loaded all FOUR green bags, with a week's worth of food, into the car. FOUR bags. Two bags in each hand. A week's worth. One trip into the house. So what used to take a minimum of 10 steps, handling each items multiple times, now looks like this:
- Find required items and scan
- Put items in bag, which is already in cart
- Hand scanner wand to cashier, pay.
- Load and unload the car - EASY
- Put items away, put bags back into car for next time
I've handled each item TWICE, instead of four or five times. I would like to meet the person or persons who thought this new way. I would like to personally thank them for being so smart and making this previously horrible chore now quite do-able. Until the other stores get on board with this new system, I'll be a Stop & Shop loyal customer, and I don't even care if their stuff is more expensive. I'll pay for that convenience any time. I even picked up a couple more reusable bags to keep in the other vehicles in case I have to stop on the spur of the moment and pick something up.
Well - I just had to share that. Thats how impressed I am. I went grocery shopping today, and I'm not exhausted or grouchy. In fact, I'm smiling. Cool beans.
Peace
3 comments:
OMG!! So glad you tried the wands. Doesn't it make life that much easier? I can't wait until we get them in our store.
I want this! I even told Matt about it. He says, 'how do they know if you scanned everything?' Soooo-how do they? Weight? Is there some kind of security alarm that goes off is something isn't scanned? Tell us-what what-we are so curious.
It is a great idea and I wish we had this. Want to open a stop n shop in TN??
I asked Paul the same thing, and he didn't know. My guess (?) and his, too, was that they have people watching, or maybe will employ random checks. Another flag would be if your wand only came to $50 and you had a dozen bags?
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