The Very Best Grocery Shopping Trip EVER!
Okay, what's the most suburban event you can imagine going to? For me, it would be a supermarket grand opening celebration. Yeah, that's pretty much it -- and, that's pretty much what I did today!
I have been dead tired since my surgery and I haven't felt like going anywhere. But, we needed groceries and my sense of humor was spiked when Kathy told me that our newly remodeled Safeway was having a grand opening. (This is suburbia, so we have a Safeway within 3 miles of every direction -- this one is perhaps the friendliest one, though not the fanciest.) She said they were randomly giving away 200 iPod Shuffles during the day. We made our shopping list for the week.
I remembered that some Safeway coupons came in the mail, so I dug through my coupon stack (omigod, I am a suburbanite--I have a COUPON STACK!) and found one for $10 off an order of $50 or more. That's pretty darn good for groceries!
The rain was pouring down, but we went to Safeway anyway. Walking in, we were greeted with an explosion of fresh produce and sale signs. I don't usually buy produce at Safeway because it's rarely good, but wow, this was nice stuff. Everything was stocked to bursting. Overhearing the people who worked there, it sounded like a madhouse earlier and we were lucky to show up during the dinnertime slump.
If I went to the Walnut Creek Safeway in the other direction, I would have been treated like a freak for having blue hair, plus, they are remarkably rude for a Safeway that's only a mile from corporate headquarters. But at this store, everyone smiled and offered to help, even though we were two women of a similar age clearly sharing a shopping cart. I was happy because almost everything we were buying was on sale. Wheeee! Gee, I just need a frilly apron and a string of pearls, then my destiny will be complete.
At the checkout, I was delighted to see that I saved 36% on the total order. Yeah, I'm competitive with that. But then the cashier said, in a somewhat bored fashion, "You won an iPod Shuffle -- go to Customer Service and you can pick it up."
I swear, I grinned like a kid at this. "I won an iPod Shuffle! Yay, me!" I grinned all the way to customer service and all the way out the door, the clear acrylic case enclosed by my happy fingers. "We RULE!" I said to Kathy.
Outside, I looked at th receipt again as we dashed to the car. "Hey, this says I earned a free grande coffe drink at Starbucks! This is fabulous!" Now, I don't drink Starbucks coffee, but Kathy does. As we approached the car, I looked down to see several multiplication flash cards sinking into a puddle in the parking lot. "Look!" I shouted. "Free ephemera!" I flipped two cards onto the carpet in the car to dry.
Just as we headed out, I looked at the coupon they handed me with the receipt. Usually it's a discount on some lookalike brand other than what I bought. But this time, it was a "$10 off any order of $10 or more" -- which means FREE GROCERIES! Omigod!
This pretty much makes it the very best grocery shopping trip EVER! Savings everywhere, an iPod Shuffle, a free coffee drink, free ephemera, and $10 in free groceries. Marge and Norm must be apologizing for the surgery. Thanks!
Later on, Kathy asked me if I knew how the iPod Shuffle worked. I said yeah, I know it just plays songs in a random order. It's pretty much the anti-Alix device, to be honest. That's why I left it by her computer! I must be honest with myself -- if the Shuffle had a big button on it labeled, "No, Not That Song" I'd probably be hitting it 15 times in a row until a big voice boomed out, telling me to Drop the iPOD and step away! Control freaks like me neede a Nano or something. BUT I STILL WON IT AND THAT IS SOOOO COOL!
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