Packing Groceries…

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Every week, for close to 30 years, I’ve gone food shopping with my husband. We go every Sunday morning and shop for the week, then fill in with an item here or there during the week. Ok, so by my calculations, we have been shopping approximately 1400 times, give or take. And we have developed a system for efficient packing. I unpack the cart, putting all the heavy items in the front and this way they will be at the bottom of every bag, and the lighter, crushable stuff on top or in a separate bag. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure this out. I also group like items together so the unpacking (which I have to do) is easier.

So why am I sitting here this morning with a frowny face? Well, it seems the last few times we have been shopping, my husband keeps coming up with new ways to pack the groceries. I wouldn’t care if they were better and more efficient ways. In fact I am all for improvements and short cuts. However, this is not the case. For what ever reason, he has decided to improvise every week, and pack as though it was our first time in the store. Maybe if I had more patience, or any patience, I could just overlook this new found sense of adventure of his, but I don’t. I am a creature of habit and when something works I like to stick with it.

Today, for example, I bought my brother 20 tv dinners that were on sale and we drop them off on our way home because he doesn’t have a car. So, we have always packed his tv dinners in the plastic bags provided by the store until today. Today my husband thinks it might be better to pack them in our shopping bags and then, if we run out of bags, we should put our things in plastic. Of course I didn’t see him doing this until I had finished unpacking the cart and the deed was done. I asked him why he decided to change the way we have always done things, and his answer, “I don’t know.” So he starts trying to take all the dinners out of our bags and repack them in plastic. Ugh! Nothing fits right. He is not putting them in neatly and the bags are keeling over. Meanwhile, I am trying to pack all the rest of my groceries so we can leave the store while it’s still daylight!

Last week, he put my white bread in with the 2 liter soda bottles! I have complained about my bread being squashed for years, and he still hasn’t gotten it. Sometimes, you have to wonder if men to these things on purpose to get out of doing them altogether. If so, it’s working!

I guess I should be grateful for the “help” but I think I would really prefer it if he sat in the car while I shopped and packed, and then just help me load and unload the car.