So on Monday, I had to get groceries. I decided that I’d do my initial grocery-getting at Wal-Mart, since the list wasn’t too terribly long, and then I’d get the things that Wal-Mart doesn’t carry (2% large-curd cottage cheese. Don’t look at me, Fred’s the one who eats it.) at my beloved Publix.
Most of the stuff I was buying at Wal-Mart was in the baking aisle, and I was out of butter, so I needed to get some of that. I absentmindedly jotted down the price of the yeast and bread flour I was buying, just because I was curious how much cheaper Wal-Mart really is than Publix. Then I moseyed down to grab a pound of butter (typing that makes me feel particularly fat.) and when I saw the price, my eyes bugged clean out of my head.
A pound of unsalted Land o’ Lakes butter at Publix: $3+. A pound of unsalted Land o’ Lakes butter at Wal-Mart: 2 for $4.
I bought six pounds of the damn stuff, because you can freeze it ’til you need it.
(KATG listeners, imagine me saying that in Keith’s “fat voice,” please.)
When I got to Publix, I went down the baking aisle first and found that a package of yeast at Publix is fifty cents more than at Wal-Mart. Now granted, it’s only 50 cents, but damn. DAMN. That can add up!
(Newsflash: Stupid Alabama woman is the last person in existence to realize that shit is less expensive at Wal-Mart than the local yuppy grocery store.)
So I grabbed the things I needed to get – frozen fruit, half-price Easter candy (Which conveniently can also be stored in the freezer. OR MY BELLY. Whichever.), something else I don’t recall – and I stood in line and had quite a nice conversation with the cashier as she rang up my purchases. We commiserated over the fact that there were no Reese’s peanut butter eggs in the half-price cart and how damn good those things are, and then I finished paying, we thanked each other, and I went out to the car.
Luckily, I hadn’t actually left the parking lot when I realized that the number one most important thing I’d visited Publix for? You know, the cottage cheese? I’d forgotten to buy any. So I went back in, grabbed eight cartons of the cottage cheese (it was on sale, and they last for weeks. Shaddup. Why am I defending my purchases to you, I highly suspect you don’t care all that much. Do you? Ah, you do, I can see it in your crazy stalker eyes. Nevermind.) and ended up back in line at the exact same cash register.
You know, the one where we’d had a deep, meaningful conversation about the Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs literally three minutes before?
She rang up my cottage cheese, asked why I was buying so many, and asked if I’d ever tried the store brand cottage cheese, and nodded sympathetically when I told her it was for my husband and he’s not picky about many things, but he’s picky about his cottage cheese.
And never once did she indicate in any way that she’d ever seen my face before in her life.
So anyway, much as I hate Wal-Mart, and much as I hate the fact that they are assfaces to their employees, I cannot deny that a penny saved is a penny motherfucking earned. In the face of saving 50 cents on yeast and over a dollar on butter, I will likely be doing the bulk of my grocery shopping at Wal-Mart from here on out.
I AM SINGLEHANDEDLY KILLING THE ECONOMY.
Ooh, but you know what? They have this AISLE now, this brand-new aisle of mostly food items that are priced at $1 or less. I like that aisle. I introduced my mother to this aisle, and she likes it too. Won’t you come to Wal-Mart and meet the $1 or less aisle?
I imagine us all wandering blank-faced into Wal-Mart like zombies, moaning “One dollar! One dollarrrrrrrr!”
To round out this entry, a meme. It’s from the “Sunday Stealing” site and it’s not Sunday, but who cares, right?
Sunday Stealing: The Green Meme
1. What is your current obsession? More ways to save money – and is it cheaper to shop at the Dollar General Market than Wal-Mart or not?
2. What’s a good coffee place? What is this “good coffee” you speak of? I don’t drink coffee, so to me it’s all the same.
3. Who was the last person that you hugged? Fred, I’m sure.
4. Do you nap a lot? I can’t remember the last time I took a nap, so no. Wait, that’s a lie, I do remember – last week on the floor of the foster kitten room, with warm and purring kittens piled atop me. I dared not move lest I wake them up, so I figured I might as well nap, too. (Usually, though, I’m not a napper.)
5. Tonight, what’s for dinner? We’re taking my parents to Logan’s Roadhouse.
6. What was the last thing that you bought? Birthday presents for my littlest nephew’s 4th birthday at Wal-Mart yesterday.
7. What is your favorite weather? 73 and sunny, maybe a gentle breeze.
8. Tell us something about one blogger who you think will play this week? I… do not know.
9. If you were given a free house that was fully furnished, where in the world would you like it to be? Somewhere where it’s 73 and sunny year-round. Oh, and if there were ocean nearby, that would be smashing.
10. Name three things that you could not live without. My heart. My liver (I assume). My brain. HAR. I can’t think of one possession I would die without, so I’m going to say nothing at all. Everything can be replaced. Don’t get me wrong – I’d be sad if my house burned down and I lost all the pictures I’ve taken over the years, but I wouldn’t die without them.
11. What would you like in your hands right now? Um. ::smirk::
12. What’s one of your guilty pleasures? Those damn Real Housewives shows. I don’t actually feel all that guilty about watching them, though.
13. What would you change or eliminate about yourself? My wattle. It drives me nuts.
14. As a child, what type of career did you want? Depended on what moment you asked me. For a while I wanted to be a vet, ’til I realized how much school it involved. When I had the tumor removed from my knee, I wanted to be an orthopedic surgeo. I think I wanted to be a nurse, also a secretary (I would kick ASS at being a secretary, I’m excellent at determining and meeting expectations before the person having the expectations knows they even expect them), Psychologist, and something to do with computers.
15. What are you missing right now? Heat. GODDAMN it’s cold in here right now!
16. What are you currently reading? Sham: How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless. Also, the latest Playboy. I haven’t been reading much lately, though.
17. What do you fear the most? Having a stroke or in some way being incapacitated and bedridden permanently.
18. What’s the best movie that you’ve seen recently? I really liked Yes Man. I could watch Jim Carrey read his grocery list out loud for two hours, as long as he made those faces and threw himself around. (On a side note, have Paul Rudd and Bradley Cooper ever been in a movie together? Because I suspect the earth would implode from the impact of having so much pretty in one movie.)
19. What’s your favorite book from the past year? Find Me, by Carol O’Connell. Just thinking about the end makes me teary-eyed.
20. Is there a comfort food from your childhood that you still enjoy? Whoopie pies. Is lobster comfort food? I’ll say lobster, too.
My parents are visiting, and to my dismay Beulah loves my father more than she loves me. In fact, she loves my mother more than she loves me, too. The only thing she wants me for is to give her food that she can gulp down before she goes back to hang out on my father or mother.
JUST STOMP ON MY HEART, BEULAH, YOU HEARTLESS BRAT.
More pics over at L&H.
I’m fairly certain heads would roll if Stinkerbelle got an eyeful of THIS situation.
Previously
2008: And then I will duct-tape the stupid thing to me so that I don’t lose it!
2007: It’s a rough fucking life.
2006: No entry.
2005: The freakin’ notify list.
2004: You could take notes, motherfucker.
2003: Okay, okay! Just please stop asking!
2002: I guess I was a doofus even way back then.
2001: DO NOT, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, EMAIL AND ASK IF I HAVE ANYTHING ON THIS LIST, STILL. I DO NOT
2000: I had to refrain from picking her up and squeezing her to bits.