Shop til it drops

I spent 30 minutes at Aldi today...grocery shopping with me, myself, and Alivia.  I dropped Louis and the older girls off to eat while I hit the store.  We were kind of killing 2 birds with one stone (hungry kids, kitchen needing restocking) in a limited amount of time.

I love Aldi.  It's clean.  It's inexpensive- where else can you get a fresh pineapple for $0.99?  It's quirky (pay for your cart, bring your own shopping bags).  It's the ONLY store I can get in and out of in 30-45 minutes...even with kiddos!!!

I buzzed around the store checking off my grocery list.  Since our home has been infested with sickness for a month and I have not been to the store, our staples have become depleted.

Then I went to pay.  I pulled out my debit card to use and since I didn't know pin number, I asked him to run it as credit.

Forgetful moment #8,452: Aldi doesn't take credit.  Or checks.
Embarrassing moment #15,623: My cart sits there and I walk out without my grub.
Frustrating moment #7,201: I'm completely out of time to even run to get some cash from the bank.

Pretty bummed out, we return home to get everyone to play practice on time.

The girls came home.  "What's for dinner?"

 If there's anything more frustrating than going for groceries and returning with none, it's hearing that question when there's jelly but no bread.  And cereal but no milk.  Or you could make a can of soup for one person, scrambled eggs for two, and oatmeal for two.  But then that's too much work, haha. 

So we loaded up the van and headed up to Albany and hit the Save-A-Lot 45 minutes before closing time.  We got everything on my list (and then some) because you all know when Daddy goes, more food hops in. 

Everyone tries to help so much, it's so sweet.  One wants to help push the carts (well, they all do, really).  One reads the list.  One fetches the food from the shelves.  One picks up things to make suggestions.  One is in the seat part of the cart trying to reach out for things on the shelves as we pass by.  I'm scanning the shelves for any good deals that aren't on my list.  The cart inches forward down the aisle.  All of a sudden, "Crash, crash, crash". A million A1 Steak Sauce bottles crash onto the floor because the cart ran into one of those cardboard display 'cases' that was sitting in the aisle!!!

Embarassing moment # 15,624: Steak sauce covers the floor, and even splashed up onto boxes on shelves. It even goes under the shelves into the next aisle.  There's broken glass everywhere and you can't even tell exactly how many bottles were busted because of the thickness of steak sauce and the aroma that causes you to need to blink your eyes over and over.