butter me up

Let me just start by saying that the grocery store and I have a love/hate relationship.

As in, I love food, but hate the grocery store.

At least, I hate it most of the time.

Yesterday was the worst of times, but also the best of times. There is a really long story that came out of yesterday's shopping adventure that I'm going to save for later.

First, the story of Mr. Butter.

Let's start at the beginning, shall we?

I'm shopping for a few things after work (a terrible time to go, by the way) and get in line to pay. The man ahead of me only had a few items, so I assume that it won't take long. Oh, silly girl.

Well, the cashier starts scanning his items and suddenly stops. I look up to see what's slowing us down and notice her holding 1 stick of butter.

Honestly I thought his box of butter opened somehow and the sticks spilled out, so she was trying to collect them back together.

Nope.

It was alone.

This man was trying to buy 1 stick out of a 1 pound box of butter.

For those of you who don't grocery shop (ever) I'll paint the picture for you. Butter comes in boxes containing 4, 1/4 lb sticks. 1 box costs $1.78.

In order for this man to buy his 1 stick he would have had to:

tear off the safety label

open the flaps

shake out 1 stick

replace the remaining 3 sticks in the box

close the flaps

replace the box on the refrigerator shelf

What part of this process indicates that you can buy 1 stick at a time?!

It's not a bar of chocolate for goodness sake.

The cashier seemed to be in shock that someone would try such a maneuver and told him that he couldn't buy just 1 stick. This didn't go over well. He became indignant and insisted on seeing the manager.

Meanwhile, my sorbet is melting.

The manager (of course) tells him that sticks of butter within a package are not individually marked, so you can't buy just one. This annoys him and he declines to buy any. All of that and he didn't even really need the butter!

Have you ever had adventures in grocery shopping? I like it when I can leave the store with a funny story and actually think it's funny. A few months ago when the pregnancy hormones were peaked I would have raged and fumed, but now I just laugh.

The other story to come...