Never again, Pick and Save! This was the pineapple that broke my back.

Good morning!

It's been a difficult week for the family here. Hubby's father passed away suddenly.  Hubby has been out of town, handling arrangements and helping his sisters clean out Dad's place. I would be there, but there were things here that needed attending to, the biggest of which was getting Peaches' car to pass emissions testing. This involved having to take her car in for some lengthy repair. Since I work at home and she does not, I let her drive my beloved Cube.

This meant I was without a car for a goodly amount of time this week.  Without a car...pretty much alone....dead of winter.  You'd think I managed to clear out my overloaded DVR.  You'd be wrong.  But that's another story.

Anyway, we got the car stuff all sorted and so yesterday I was able to leave the house on my very own in my very own car.  I actually put on pants with a zipper for the occasion.  This was a big deal.

It's not like I went anyplace grand. I went to a couple second hand book stores/video stores to find a copy of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.  I can't believe I don't own that.  With Alan Rickman's passing, however, I had a yearning to see my second favorite of his films.  (The first would be Blow Dry. Honestly, if you haven't seen it, you should.)  Then I had to go to the grocery store.

I would have had to pass at least two other grocery stores to get to Woodman's, and I was getting tired.  This was, after all, my first foray outside in a few days. I decided, against my better judgement, to go to the dressed up version of Pick and Save...Metro Market.  Metro Market is just a Pick and Save with dimmer lighting and more food on buffets all out in the open so shoppers can just help themselves randomly...drive by snacking.  If I didn't need exactly two things, I wouldn't have stopped, but I needed more clementines and more of those Weight Watchers Snack Size fudge bars.  Seriously nothing calms my irritated stomach more than one of those little guys.  45 calories, and so much more effective than an antacid.  The snack size bars are hard to come by, they are usually sold out, so if I find them, I buy a couple boxes of them because they are the best.  

I get into the store and there are no clementines. Seriously.  Every other store in the WORLD has bags and bags and BAGS of those lovely little mini orange dealies, but not Metro Market. Nope. Must not be fancy enough for Metro Market.  I can get five kinds of brie at that store, but not one clementine to be had.  So I got some pineapple instead.  

On my way to the frozen foods aisle I picked up a couple other items.  I had a very small cart, one of those cute double decker things you're starting to see in stores.  Now, Woodmans has a rule that those carts cannot go outside. I didn't see the same sign for the one I was using,  but I figured, looking at the items in my cart, I could just carry them out, ideally in two bags.

I got to the check out line and I said to the clerk, "If you could put this in two bags that would be great.  I have  a bit of a walk to my car."  

He nodded and passed that message on to the bagger, a girl who looked like she had all the light energy of a mushroom.  I now know the meaning of the words "dead eyes."

I didn't pay attention to her bagging, I was busy watching the items rings up on the screen.  I paid, and I looked at the cart. Two bags in the top deck. All nice and waiting for me.

Awesome.

I rolled the cart to the entry where I picked up the bags and thought, "I don't see the ice cream bars."  I double check and there it is, a third bag, this one with the heaviest items, in the lower basket of the cart.  

Let's talk about this for a moment.  I mean, I asked for two bags, if it was possible. The dead eyed checker never said, "I had to put it in three."  She never said, "There's a bag on the bottom."  (These are all things that other baggers have done.  It's called common courtesy.)  No, instead she put two bags on top and wished me well, never telling me she'd buried the heaviest bag in the bottom.

I was a little annoyed, but what can I expect...it may say Metro Market on the door, but it's really a Pick and Save and that's what I get for shopping here.  I reached for the bag and pull, but because it's heavy, and tall, and she put the boxes with the sharp corners in there, I snag it on the top basket, tearing a pretty sizable hole in the bag.  I set down my other bags to free the third without further tearing the thing.  That's when I also discovered that Dead Eyes managed to arrange the items in one of the other bags so that the top of the plastic container holding the pineapple had broken the plastic seal strip and popped off and there was now pineapple juice pretty much on everything.

Oh good.

I realize she's not a doctor and thus did not have to take the oath that starts, "First do no harm."  And maybe asking that the groceries be put in two bags was too much.  And maybe three didn't fit in the top basket  (no, three would have fit in the top basket). Shouldn't the minimum expectation of ANY grocery shopper be that when they get the groceries to the car, the groceries AREN'T COVERED IN PINEAPPLE JUICE?

Never again, Pick and Save.  Call yourself whatever you want.  I've got Woodman's and soon I'll have a Meijer's and you will long be a distant memory with your overpriced everything and your dead eyed baggers and your check out clerks who have whole conversations with each other while totally
ignoring you.  (That didn't happen this time, but it has...)    Never again!