Early Saturday Mornings

Because I work fairly long hours (my hours are flexible but some weeks they are long when I'm trying to accomplish lots of things), I often use early Saturdays to run errands - gas up the car, buy groceries, do other stuff. This has upsides and downsides.

The upside is places tend to be less busy, and the really annoying people (the people who feel entitled to do stuff like open a bag of grapes, eat a bunch, and then decide they don't want them, and leave them somewhere in the cereal aisle) are generally not out and about. I can get what I need and scram, which is a good day of grocery shopping for me.

(I don't like shopping in general. I like shopping in bookstores and craft-supply stores and antique stores and SOMETIMES shopping for clothes if I'm not rushed and desperate and looking for that one thing I need that will turn out to be on offer nowhere....But usually, I don't like shopping, and I especially don't like grocery shopping)

Anyway. So I ran out first to get gas in the car. I couldn't hold off any longer in hopes that the prices would drop below $3 (apparently some places in the US they have. We're close, but not there yet).

I got cat-called by some guy at the gas station.

Now, this rarely happens to me, as I am of an age, body type, and general standard of modesty that most of the guys who would cat-call don't notice me. But for some reason today this guy did.

Getting cat-called is not fun. I won't say it was scary, though I could see how being cat-called if you were walking alone down a dark street and for some reason didn't have your piece on you for protection could be. This was more creepy and icky and "really, dude?"

Here's a hint to the gents: Very few women, and very few of the kind who make good long-term partners, will respond favorably to a cat-call. (Though then again, maybe the cat-callers are looking for short-term fun, rather than long-term partners, and that's why they do it)

Then at the Wal-Mart, I learned that the surly cashiers work the early shift. I suppose I'd be surly, too, if I were at my low-paying job at 7 am on a Saturday morning and was expected to go to happy-clappy "teamwork" meetings (one was just starting in the Hardware section - they call them for different locataions - as I was heading out of there).

I've also found that the local wal-mart has gotten a lot worse about restocking. Of late, I've not been shopping there as often because I discovered a new grocery store in Next Town Over, and it's really nice, so I've been trying to take the time to get down there as often as I can. But it's an hour's round trip, and I didn't have that kind of time or energy today. So I went to wal-mart. Got the last two cartons of the kind of skim milk I use - usually they had multiples, and actually, the last time I was there, they were out, so I had to get 1% instead. And it's the same on most of the shelves. And I notice their "great value" store brand is replacing more and more of the national brands. This displeases me because I've found the quality of "great value" to be incredibly variable - some of the stuff is okay, some of the stuff is most definitely NOT, and I'm unwilling to experiment and hope that the new stuff replacing, I don't know, Ronzoni or whatever, is.

Also, the yogurt I normally buy? All the cartons on the shelf had already expired. I was going to tell someone but all the workers other than a few checkers were at the "mandatory meeting" and I forgot about it by the time I got to the checker.

It just feels very....I don't know, I don't like the word "ghetto" but it just feels like the wal-mart here in town has stopped trying because they know people mostly have to shop there and don't really have a choice, so meh, whatever, why should we restock the plain yogurt? People can eat the expired kind or go with something else.

I guess it's time to start keeping a better "nonperishable" list and make sure I've checked everything off it when I go to the grocery in Next Biggest Town. Or to use Amazon for ordering some of my groceries.

We really need another large grocery in this town. I doubt we'll ever get it, unless the town swells another 10,000 people or so, but we really need something that's the same size as the wal-mart but that seems more committed to customer service and actually keeping stuff on the shelves. I'd shop there in a heartbeat even if it meant paying more. As much as I can, I shop at the small family-run place here in town, but they're small and don't stock some of the things I need and use on a regular basis....