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Top Comments: Groceries Edition [1]

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Date: 2023-05-01

Do you remember needing groceries way back in 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic? Like many households, our choices were either send someone to the grocery store to wait in line for your chance to shop, or attempt to get a precious Instacart slot and hope that what got delivered resembled what you ordered? Casa Brillig went the former, opting to leave those delivery slots to people who absolutely could not do in-person shopping. Back then…

I was our designated shopper, as I was the only member of the household not either in school or working for pay (I absolutely refuse to say I don’t work, but I don’t hold a job with a W2 and all that… I keep Casa Brillig running). To minimize risk, I went shopping once a week, usually first thing Monday morning when it was generally least busy. We planned menus, with everyone writing down on our kitchen whiteboard meals they hoped we could have soon, and I did my best to make those happen. We had a shopping list in the kitchen, and I bought everything on the list that wasn’t a supply chain casualty. I also tried to buy other items we either needed or would be a nice surprise.

I had a circuit: Wegmans (my favorite of our local grocery stores), then Target, then Costco or Trader Joes if we needed things from there. It took me about three hours, and when I got home, that was it. If you forgot to put it on the list, better luck next week. If they didn’t have it, better luck next week. If you ate three pounds of grapes in four days, then you didn’t have grapes until next Monday. If you were fifteen and wanted a meal spur of the moment and we didn’t have it, oh well. Get it on the board. And eat those leftovers!! Do NOT waste the food that it took me hours to get. On RARE occasions I’d make a second run, if it were something vital… milk, meds, etc.

As the landscape changed and restrictions eased combined with pandemic fatigue, I admit it became easier to ‘just run out’ and get that thing rather than wait. Explaining to K2 I wasn’t going shopping twice was harder to justify when he was attending in-person high school every other week. And then suddenly everyone was back to school, Mr. Brillig was going into the office several days each week and I noticed we’d crept back to our old pattern: one major grocery trip, plus way too many smaller trips because we wanted something we didn’t have.

In general, 2023 sees me STILL doing our major shopping on Monday mornings. It’s still relatively uncrowded and despite being told the pandemic is over, I don’t want to shop with a parking lot full of strangers if I don’t have to and would rather attend a second grade recorder concert before shopping on Saturdays. The employees at the registers recognize me because I am ALWAYS there around 9:30am, and we chat for a moment before I head to the car with frozens and they begin helping someone else. But I also stop into our local store every other day or so for produce or perishables, and I long ago stopped meal planning with the fervor I had three years ago.

You know what? I kinda miss it. Not the shortages, or the panic, but the regularity of planning, shopping, and knowing folks had to work around what we have. I think we wasted less and were more intentional about what we ate. I suspect I can’t get back to that with a hungry 17yo athlete in the house, but by fall 2024 he’ll likely be at college and Mr. Brillig and I will be able to develop our empty nester routines.

How about you? Are you a regular day of the week shopper (either in person or via delivery methods) or do you shop whenever you need something, however often that is? Is what you do now different than at the height of the pandemic, and was that different than in the Before Times? Check out tonight’s Tops, then share your grocery patterns in the comments!

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