Grocery shopping is not a joy for me. While some love roaming the aisles, checking out the sale items, for me it's a chore.
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No matter what I buy, my family hates it, and despite filling the trolley to the brim, I always forget something.
The only part of grocery shopping I do like, is chatting to the gorgeous women who work at my local supermarket. We chat together, we grumble together, we have a bit of a laugh and then we get on with our jobs.
Me shopping, and them running the store.
This week I went grocery shopping with my mother. She is 78 and rather hilarious.
She seems to really like grocery shopping. It's a few hours out of her house, and a chance to mix with other people. Her legs don't work so well so we throw her elbow crutches into the boot of my car.
My job, once we reach the supermarket, is to push the trolley around while she shops.
But it seemed silly to not kill two birds with the same stone, so she filled the main section of the trolley, while I piled up bits and pieces in the child seat at the top.
Together we pottered around the supermarket.
However, it became obvious very quickly that we approach shopping from two very different angles.
While I charge around like a mad bull, literally chucking the necessary items into the bottom of the trolley, she takes her time, looking at all the produce like a vegetable connoisseur; squeezing the sweet potatoes, searching for the perfect onions out of dozens and making sure she was given the best slices of ham from the deli.
It had never occurred to me to hunt through the bread rolls to make sure we didn't get any that were even remotely squashed. They had to be perfect.
I wasn't in a rush; my day was hers for the taking. So, I spent 10 times longer than usual wandering through the many aisles of produce. She had her list which she kept referring to as we went.
It was quite a struggle to keep my mouth shut with the number of times she nearly fell over because she was using one of her crutches to point at products on high shelves rather than keep her balance.
By the end of our shopping, I had perfectly round bread rolls for my boys' lunches and she had everything on her list. She hadn't missed a thing.
She was tired by the end, so it was time for coffee at the local bakery. I sat opposite her thinking she was rather amazing. While I was laughing at her on the inside, I loved that she loved getting out and about despite no longer having the capacity to shop alone.
Perhaps grocery shopping should no longer be a chore for me. Perhaps I should smell the avocados and taste test the grapes, and go shopping with my beautiful mum more often.