Saturday, June 13, 2009

Eeny Meeny Miny Mo

I made my first trip to the supermarket this past Monday. Next time I'll take an Advil before I go. I felt a little bit like a 3 year old whose mother asks if they want to wear the pink top or the green top and they take 20 minutes to make up their mind before finally settling on the pink and then they cry because they really wanted the green. That was me in the salad dressing aisle. And the cereal aisle. And a few other aisles too. Who knew there were so many choices? And so many new products. And they all come in supersized containers. I stood in front of the salad dressing for a long time. Do I want regular, light or no fat? Regfrigerated or shelf? Name brand or store brand? I see Ranch...I haven't had Ranch dressing in a long time so let's go with Ranch. But wait, do I want Ranch with Parmesan, with pepper, with Parmesan and pepper, with sun dried tomato, with sun dried tomato and basil, with garden herb...help! In the end I grabbed a bottle of plain ole Italian.


A friend told me she had the same 'problem' with mustard. She was visiting her mother in law in Texas and she was sent out to the market for mustard. She neglected to ask which type and it never occurred to her that she'd have 400 varieties to choose from. In England there aren't one quarter of the choices you have here...you go to buy a vacuum and there are two...which do you want? Easy peasy. When I first moved to England that lack of choice was a teensy bit annoying. But you adjust your expectations and eventually I grew to like the simplicity. I mean do I really need 7000 cereals to choose from? I suppose I'll re-adjust my expectations once again and grow to love all the choice but for now it's a bit overwhelming. Obviously. Because I did just write a whole post about buying salad dressing.

Today my husband and I are off to buy televisions and a refrigerator. Don't worry though...I've got my Advil. Extra Strength. The jumbo bottle. Only in America.

7 comments:

  1. The choices can be mind boggling. I really miss the days when I wanted a can of tomatoes and didn't accidentally come home with a can of tomatoes with Italian seasonings. I used to be able to zip through the grocery store. Now I have to really study what I'm picking up. I've even been known to need two of something and just picked up two that were on the shelf back to back, only to find out when I get home that one of them was right and the other was some strange flavored variety. I think I'm going to need some of that Advil. I can really get on a rant about the grocery store.

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  2. Don't feel bad, I have lived here all these years and still have a hard time making choices. I'm with you, what's wrong with just a few choices. It is very overwhelming!! Shopping for televisions won't be fun either. Too much of that technology is way over my head. Hopefully you will have some good sales people to help you. I love to cook, so I always buy the biggest refrigerator I can put in my kitchen space. I even have another refrigerator in my basement to store excess food and drinks. I hope you all are adjusting to life in the US. I know you will be glad to get into your house. When is that going to be?
    Have a great weekend. Love & blessings from NC!

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  3. This is SO funny. And I can so relate. Yes, only in America. Funny how you can only get 6 paracetomol's here and like 500 Tylenol. :)

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  4. That is funny...I enjoyed reading your blog this afternoon...Had some time to do some blog hopping...always enjoy your blog.

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  5. You are so funny. I guess it's something I've never thought about. I do most of my shopping at a small local store called Sprouts, and there - everything is in check. Organic, locally grown "easy peasy" LOL. ANd all of their wonderful produce is much cheaper than the big stores. I love the free range turkeys and chickens, organic beef, brown eggs - etc. But get to the dried fruits and nuts? MAN! They have 4 isles of every kind of granolas, mixed fruit, nut, trail mix that you can think of. Salted or non it can be overwhelming. And you just scoop out how much you want, weigh it, put on a tag and you're good to go. I'm getting the hang of it.
    You will too! Maybe try a smaller market! Look around, you might have one.
    Good luck in an electronics store! HA!

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  6. I love hearing about your re~entry to the States. You are totally right about the obnoxious amount of choices and quantities we have.... but I bet you'll be sucked into loving it soon! :) Wishing you the best in this transition!

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  7. I feel the same way. There really are too many choices and varieties.
    One really has to read the labels well or, like the first person who commented said....you'll get home and it won't be what you thought it was. Tomato sauce is the worst. :)

    Hope you had good luck with your other purchases.

    Welcome (back) to America!

    Love,
    Valerie

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