A Long Weekend: Shop As If There Is No Tomorrow!

Madness the way we all think that there won't be any food to buy after the weekend...

In our defence, our weekly day of grocery shopping fell on this day. Pure coincidence and far from planned. The world over, the long weekend heralds an excuse to shop till you drop for food. I bet no one ever eats all the food bought!

Queues are longer and trolleys piled much higher. Supermarkets are jolly clever because they put long weekend survival foods in the most prominent spots. Chips, chocolates, ice-creams, alcohol and charcoal. Oh yes, holiday weekends are an excuse to go wild and eat to our hearts content.

Tempers usually flare up in supermarkets because the waiting time at the checkout is longer, and often the last bag of chips gets fought over. Even we got infused with this euphoria and bought a few extra items a la " when in Rome, do as the Romans "...a bag of chips and a long life milk. Ooh, living dangerous indeed.

The fun of course already started in the car park and when Bob saw how full it was, he let out a moan of note. But the lure of food was greater than his irritation. Thinking back, I used to always shop each day after work. In fact, I only planned my dinners at lunch time and shopped accordingly. On those days before a holiday, the shops seemed awfully bare just before closing time yet somehow I survived the odd lack of essentials!

Now that we live in the country and shop according to a weekly schedule, the way we shop has changed. The two of us know the drill and mosey down the isles picking the same things again and again. If there is a special or a mark-down of stuff, we stand and ponder a few minutes whether we can and should incorporate it into our shop.

It is amazing how we have adapted to shopping for 7 dinners, 7 lunches & 7 breakfasts a week in advance. When we do set out from home, I have a quick reconnoitre around the kitchen to see what we didn't use during the week. Having had two mushroom meals courtesy of the forest this week, means we have two meal-ingredients left over. Nice.

Bob and I are still trying to find the most reasonable supermarket ( price wise ) and still haven't settled that question. One thing I have noticed though, is that the discounters have a cunning set up at the till.

When they scan the items, you as the customer don't see the price scanned. The screen is tilted away from the customer and your only recourse is to look at your till slip after you have paid. I wonder whether they think that hardly anyone would brave the throng of people at the tills in order to complain about a wrongly priced item? At the one discounter we go to most, we usually take the queue next to the wall, a mirrored wall. Oh yes, I have become adept at reading the price's mirror image...

Biggi