Yesterday was a day filled with shopping. And not for shoes. Even moving into a corporate apartment, that is furnished, we still needed a lot of things.

I arranged my trip so I could leave right from breakfast, drive up to where we had been staying in the hotel and the Whole Foods was located, make a big circle and get home as soon as possible.

I wanted to shop at the Kroger closer to our new place but, because I had time to kill before a  9 a.m. opening, I went to the Kroger by Whole Foods – 20 minutes away from where we are living.

I bought a ton of stuff, you know how it is when you’re first moving in. I was happily waiting in line for the one cashier when a very friendly lady suggested that I come down and do the self check-out and she would help me.

I told her I was new in town and that this was my first visit to Kroger. She was right there with me, showing me how to do the check-out.

Eventually, I had too many things and started taking them out of the bagging area and putting them into the cart. This made the self check-out hooker freak out. “Please place the items back in the bagging area”.

Ummm. No. There isn’t any room.

“Well,” the nice self-help lady said, “you need to put them up on top.” Where there was clearly not enough room for the quantity of groceries I had. Oy.

I got everything scanned, bagged, and then I paid and went home.

When I got ready to make salad for dinner last night, I noticed that I had no salad dressing when I had purchased two. I also couldn’t find the olive oil. I had opted for a bigger, more expensive bottle. Ack!

I called the store. They hadn’t found these items in the self check-out but told me I could come and they would replace them. I did that this morning. It wasn’t on my way, it was 20 minutes from home.

When I got home, I started thinking about dinner. I thought I would put one of the English roasts I had purchased into the new crock pot I bought. I looked in the freezer.

No roasts.

I looked in the fridge.

No roasts.

Dang it.

I called the store and explained my situation. She said I could come and get my money back. I told her never mind. I was willing to let it go but please don’t ask me to use the self check-out ever again.

Until I decided the pork loin would be a nice thing to have for dinner.

I looked in the freezer.

It wasn’t there.

I looked in the fridge.

Not there either. Oy.

I called the store back. She told me I could come and replace the meat.

So off I went, 20 minutes one way, to get to the Kroger in another part of town.

When I got there, the girl at the Customer Service desk told me to go grab the meat to replace the ones I didn’t get home yesterday which I did.

After she was done, I told her that I really appreciated them doing this but that when someone has as many things as I did, they really shouldn’t try the self check-out. I explained to her briefly how I thought I had left them and she said, yes, the nice self-help lady had found the meat and put it back on the shelf.

Okay, well that made me feel marginally better that I wasn’t taking all that stuff twice and paying for it once.

I felt like a complete bubblehead for not being able to manage the self check-out.

In the future, I’m going to leave grocery check-out to the professionals.

Now, I’m going to have a glass of wine.

PS – I still need wine glasses.