Spoiled by Wegmans
February 9th, 2010Warning: copy() [function.copy]: Filename cannot be empty in /home/ibjessa/public_html/blog2/wp-content/plugins/mytube/mytube.php on line 220
In a fit of procrastination, I decided to dust off my old coupon binder and clip Sunday paper coupons. Why write a lecture, when I can cheerily clip out little $1.00 offs and file them away in my binder organized by grocery aisle. And the matching! Yes, then perusing all the store circulars matching coupons to sales and looking for that oh-so-elusive “Triple Whammy” Aha! Here’s one! At Tops this week, 1.) Yoplait was on store sale for $5/10. 2.) I had just clipped a $1 off coupon for Yoplait and 3.) Tops offered a bonus $1 coupon doubler !!! Oh, the thrill of being able to score 10 yogurts at only 30cents a piece! Every bit as satisfying as the caveman clubbing a gazelle and bringing meat back to the cave.
I was pretty excited to head out to Tops after class today, clutching my fat binder of coupons. I had never been to the Henrietta Tops market, but aren’t all grocery stores just the same?
Once I pushed through the rusty metal doors, I had stepped back in time. Back to my childhood IGA grocery store. The dim fluorescent lighting. The scratched industrial linoleum from years of abuse by squeaky metal carts. The faint smell of overripe strawberries mixed with too old “fresh” fish.
Pressing forward, I scanned the wall of featured bargains. 10 for $10, mix and match!! I noticed the wall was filled with typical products, like Kraft mac-n-cheese. Isn’t that stuff always a buck? I started to second guess my plan to score a cart full of groceries on the cheap.
And then I realized I was turning into a snob. You know what it was? Font. Vegetable can font. A curley swirly cursive that looked like it belonged to the 60’s declaring Peas and Carrots embellishing a picture of a dish of too bright green and orange bits. Were these canned vegetables actually from the 60’s? Hmmm, 50 cents for a can of corn. I know that at Wegmans the canned corn is a steal at 39 cents.
That’s okay, not on my list anyway. I head toward the produce section, excited to see one of the specials from the circular…Fresh Strawberries for only 2.88! I follow the slightly off strawberry smell to the display. Rows of plastic boxes of strawberries, picked while white and ripened in the back of an 18 wheeler by ethylene gas en route to Tops. What did I expect–it’s February! I pick the one that has at least some strawberries that are red all the way around. Sammy loves strawberries, ripe or not.
After looking at the limp broccoli, bruised green onions, and stalks of wet ginger sitting unfortunately too close to the automatic veggie water sprayer—-a realization came over me. I was a grocery store snob. Despite growing up with a produce section just like this one, I knew that later today, I would go to Wegmans.
I passed on most of the deals that I had coupons for, but did manage to buy my 10 yogurts, a bag of dried lima beans, and some frozen veggie crumbles. The seafood section looked like the red-headed stepchild of the brilliant crab legs that had winked at me from the Tops circular the night before. I noticed that 90% of the clams had open shells–i.e. were dead. That’s it, we’re outta here!!!
The good news is that with the double coupons and Tops store card, most of a week’s groceries were only $70! I just needed to stop at Wegmans to buy chicken, ginger, lettuce, and Coffeemate on sale.
Walking into Wegmans was like walking onto the set of a movie about fresh food. The swirling aromas of all the hot fresh Indian and Asian food dotting the buffet area grip my senses and make me think about food. New ideas and recipes spring to mind–and things just start jumping in the cart. Oh look! There is the pink pickled ginger that I looked so hard for the last time we made sushi. I know that we have an unopened jar of the regular colored pickled ginger….but here’s the pink one! And suddenly I’m buying more sushi rice, special seasoned rice vinegar. I head to the crab legs thinking sushi—whoa! $15/lb. It was only $8/lb back at Tops, although inedible.
Finally, I finished my dance through the brightly lit aisles of stark white crisp cauliflower, fat shiny apples, and freshly baked cakes and pies. I did find a great pack of fresh-never-frozen chicken breasts for $11, and the rest of my list. Unfortunately, the bill rang up to $80—doubling my grocery bill for the week, and negating the effect of all my couponing.
Oh how I loathe you, Wegmans Grocery store. You’ve spoiled me!
Nobody does a better job of celebrating Halloween than Honeoye Falls. I can remember our first Halloween here…we dressed up our dog and wandered around with all the trick-or-treaters, but were wistfully not quite part of the action because we didn’t have any kids. Seven years later, we now have two boys in the heart of the cutest and best years for trick-or-treating at nearly three and five years old.
