I don’t travel.
Not that I won’t; I’ve just never really had the means, and I’ve never really classified a trip somewhere as a means to remediate any mental stress. I actually find coordinating a trip, or even just packing for a weekend, mentally draining because the anxiety surrounding “forgetting something” is very heavy.
I don’t have very expensive tastes. Save for, perhaps, a distinguished Dooney & Bourke to add to my collection. And since my feet grew to be different sizes after childbirth, the shoe shopping game isn’t even fun anymore.
But I can say, without a doubt, that I do enjoy grocery shopping. It’s the little things, right? I don’t even leave my kid home to provide solitude. I used to LOVE walking into a Grand Union (remember them?) and letting the aroma of whatever it was they were cooking in the deli area waft over me and lead me to it. I thought this was a fantastic marketing ploy, honestly. How else better to sell food than to let you smell it first?
This scent allure is lost among many grocery stores now, at least the ones I patronize. But I do still love walking the aisles and seeing what’s new, even if I was just there yesterday.
I am very much a creature of habit with a side order of OCD, so even though I’ll likely end up with the same routine items in my cart, I like being tantalized into trying something new.
I tried online grocery shopping when my family came down with COVID last year, and it was very nearly the worst experience of my life.
I’m a very in-person kind of gal. I like to see things. Touch them. Smell them. Hang on to them in my cart for a few minutes and then put them back after I’ve thought about it some more. I can’t do that with an app.
That’s why a recent newsletter from my colleague gave me great pause; and the ensuing twitter conversation as well. Her marketing tips and advice were spot on, of course, she’s brilliant, but this one line stopped me in my tracks:
“Grocery shopping is the worst, right? Nothing is more painful than wandering the same aisles to buy the same things repeatedly until you die.”
Until you die? I think that’s a little drastic, but sure, we do a lot of things until we die. I don’t think we needed to pick on the beautiful act of grocery shopping!
Please recognize that line is taken completely out of context to help prove my point, which is coming, I promise.
It’s not just about using my senses to cross off items on my grocery list. It’s about all the other stuff I do while I’m there.
It’s teaching my son to look both ways at the end of the aisle. It’s teaching him to also say “excuse me” when the aisle seems a little snug. It’s seeing someone you know and catching up for a few minutes in front of the milk cooler, until you start annoying some of the folks around you who need that exact cooler, so you slide down to the next one and resume the chat.
It’s about checking prices, and unit prices, (desperately) trying to do math to make sure I’m getting the best price. Before you think, “well you can do this online too,” it’s not nearly as simple in my eyes, because going back and forth to different pages on an app when I’m a visual math performer makes that a lot harder.
It’s about being among the living. That’s it. That’s the point.
While the branding and marketing campaigns for DoorDash and Instacart described in my colleague’s note are pretty, and while they actually work to quell many of the fears I’ve been describing, neither of them can replace the human interaction I yearn for.
There has been enough of a shift to virtual living since the pandemic, and not all of it is returning to normal, leaving us extroverts without a way to glean human energy to feed our souls.
Even just the regular pleasantries exchanged at Stewart’s in the morning, can make or break my day.
I remember bumping into the editor of this website at our local grocery store years ago after I had just made a pretty drastic move professionally. She gave me so much insight about my previous situation that all the uncertainty about what I had just done disappeared. I became knowledgeable and empowered. And I wouldn’t have gotten that from an app. (Editor’s note: I did not know this until the very moment that I edited this post, and I am honored and humbled).
I remember catching up with my old grammar school crossing guard at the deli counter. She recognized me. It had been almost 25 years. But she remembered. An app can’t warm my heart like that.
I’m sure many folks reading this are a little jaded about the new shifts in in-person grocery shopping, namely the self-checkout.
I honestly don’t mind it at all.
I like being able to bag my own things. I can ensure the eggs don’t get smashed, the bread doesn’t get squished, and all the frozen stuff stays together.
But, to be honest, I was bagging my own things well before the advent of self-checkout. (See, OCD note above).
Just a couple of days ago, I was already starting to check out a few things, and my son starts dancing and holding his crotch. This is likely the worst situation a mother with a potty training child can be in. So I frantically made eye contact with the self-checkout supervisor. I explained the situation, and then ran my son to the back of the store to use the family restroom.
When I came back, not only was she standing in front of our check out guarding our things, but she had even realized that the sneakers I had picked out *didn’t have a tag, so she took it upon herself to get the UPC off her hand held, and rang them up. And my transaction was waiting for me to pay. I couldn’t believe it. I thanked her so much!
You know where I was? Walmart. They may collectively get a bad wrap, but it’s the individual workers who count. I had my son thank her as well, and I think my kid’s smile made her day. (My kid’s smile would make anyone’s day, though, lol).
And my son made it to the potty successfully. So, many lessons learned.
