One Heck of A Grocery Shopping Trip

Who knew you could experience and learn so much on a grocery shopping trip...

This last Wednesday night after I had the activity day girls over I headed off to Winco Foods for a late grocery shopping trip. I had my perfected grocery list in hand and had even spent the time to categorize my needed items, by where they were located in the store. I was actually looking forward to the solo grocery store trip. I had a lot of things to get since I had not been for awhile, and I was looking at it as a nice calm escape from the house.

Once there I gathered my items with no sense of urgency whatsoever, which was nice. I considered myself lucky when the deli man told me I was his last customer before closing up, and went on my marry way still shopping. I had probably been there for a good hour and half when I wrapped up getting everything I needed on my list. I made my way to the check-out stand with a full cart and reached into my purse to get my wallet. Problem was there was no wallet. I then grabbed my phone to call Ryan and let him know about my dilemma. With him on the phone I waited for the person in-front of me to finish checking out and then asked the checker lady if she could enter my card number by hand since I had forgotten my wallet. She was nice enough to try it, but it didn't work. Her manager then came and told us that their system does not let them do that, but that they could suspend my transaction and I could run home get my wallet and come back to pay for my groceries. So I bagged my groceries and they placed my cart over by customer service and I headed home.

It was a huge bummer, but I was determined to not let it push me over the edge. I was just going to put my big girl panties on, suck it up and handle the situation. At least it was not during the middle of the day when I would have had Jayna or something. Ryan was waiting in the drive way for me when I reached the house. He handed me my wallet with out even saying anything. I think he was worried he would laugh and I would melt down. I drove back to the store which isn't exactly around the corner, parked and went back in. I got back in line at the same check out stand with the same checker, behind a young couple. Right away I could tell something was holding them up. They had tons of baby food jars and had made several different separated sections on the conveyer belt with their groceries. She looked about my age, although I can never tell anymore. She was wearing an old sweatshirt with what looked like an even older tee-shirt underneath it. Her hair looked like it was probably cut cute, but I couldn't tell because it was under a worn out handmade knitted hat. She had a cute black handbag that looked new as if she had gotten it for Christmas. He was clean cut with blonde hair and older worn clothes as-well. They looked like any Utah couple I would have seen or meet at BYU back in the day. She turned around and said she was sorry for taking so long, and I told her it was okay. The two of them kept going back and forth about dollar amounts and he even said to her once to get the calculator out. It took me a couple minutes but then I realized what was going on. It looked like they had just signed up for WIC and or food stamps. They had a program brochure with them and vouchers to buy certain foods. Each voucher was only worth so much money so they had best they could calculated and separated their groceries into piles so that each voucher would cover them. They had mostly baby-food jars and then lactose free milk, a loaf of bread, lettuce, and maybe one or two other necessities. If there is one thing I cannot handle in life it is seemingly decent people with children struggling.

As I observed some-more I saw that the girl had a fairly nice wedding ring on and I rightly or wrongly started to paint a picture of their lives in my head. To me it looked like a nice young couple that probably had fallen upon hard times and obviously had young kids. At that point my heart started to race and I felt like I was going to have a heart attack. I opened up my wallet to see how much cash I had and made the decision that I was going to pay for anything that the vouchers did not cover. I also grabbed one of the restaurant gift cards we had been given from family for Christmas and had that ready to give them as-well. I was disappointed when the vouchers zeroed everything out, but a container of blackberries. She then told the checker to go ahead and let me go and then she would just buy the berries with cash when I was done. While they were bagging their groceries I went ahead and told the checker lady that I would buy the berries for her and then gave her the gift card to give to them too. She looked at me surprised, although she probably looked at me like that because I was also the weirdo that forgot my wallet. Then not exactly according to my plan she gave the gift-card and the berries to the couple right in-front of me. I was so embarrassed! I get way to nervous about offending or embarrassing other people. The girl looked at me shocked and said "Are you sure, Thank you" I think I reacted kinda weird since I was so caught off guard. I just said your welcome and didn't even really look at her. I am so stupid! Then I was so flustered that I could not even remember my pin number. It took me two tries to get it right.

Even though I was the nights weirdo at Winco I know I did the right thing. In-fact I wish I would have done more. After telling Ryan what I did he kept making me feel bad by saying how come you didn't pay for all of their groceries or take them around the store. I just kept telling him It just happened fast and I wasn't thinking. I do though, I wish I would have told her something like meet me here next Wednesday and I will buy you more groceries. It is just a lot more intimidating to do when you are in the moment. I cried the whole time we unloaded groceries. I was so upset at myself. Upset that having to drive back home in my nice car to get my nice wallet to go back and buy my hundred dollars worth of groceries and then try to fit them all into my (what I think is) too small of pantry in my nice house is my biggest dilemma of my day. When reality is we are all a few events in life away from possibly being that couple. I am a true believer that there are moments in this life when we are asked to show are appreciation and worthiness for what we have. I just cross my fingers that I am aware enough to recognize those moments and compassionate enough to act as I should.