I  stopped at the grocery store on the way home the other night to pick up a few things. Well, three things to be exact. I did the self check-out because, well I hate people and avoid them whenever possible. (People in the grocery store, in particular, should be avoided. Because if they are not retarded –and there’s a good chance in the market that they are – they sure act that way.)

So I swipe my card, answer the 17 questions asked of me by the credit-card-swiper-thingy-that-laid-off-a-perfectly-shiftless-cashier, and take my half-mile long receipt and six coupons. Wait a minute….Three items, 30 bucks.

(For the record, I bought cat food, peanut butter and coffee. I realize I can make a joke about this trifecta, but I’ll leave it to my loyal readership to do in the comments section.)

So I thought to myself…”Self, when did shit get so expensive?”

I first thought about this when I noticed that I pay way more for a gallon of milk than a gallon of gas, when a bag of cherries felt like it cost me my bag of nuts, and when eight razor blades cost me $26. Yes, $3.50 cents per cartridge of razor blades, which I could buy at the hardware store for pennies.

(The problem is I’ve become accustomed to the five-blade razor. After using the Fusion, shaving with a one- or two-blade razor feels like, well shaving with sandpaper.)

So I started to break this down.

Coffee.  Okay, I bought nearly two pounds of coffee. It was Folgers, granted, but it was a good amount. The $10 canister said Columbian, which I hope means they are Columbian coffee beans, rather than beans that were handled by Columbian workers. I realize coffee costs a lot because of the Starbucks explosion and now coffee is so complicated. I’d complain about that, but frankly I like Starbucks and….oh my God, am I getting soft? I’ll have to ask my girlfriend…

Cat Food. Okay I get my cat the best cat food. Well at least the best I can get in the grocery store. And I buy the biggest bag for $15 because, frankly, I’m lazy and if I didn’t she might go four or five days with an empty bowl.  In the long run it’s cheaper, in the short run, it feels like a kick in the nuts.

Peanut Butter. Big jar of Jiff (creamy not crunchy, thank you very much) for 5 bucks. It’s the cheapest item, but I think “What the fluff?”  Five bucks for peanut butter? It should be cheaper, since so many kids are “allergic” to it now. (And what the hell is up with that? When I was in elementary school not a single kid was “allergic” to peanut butter; one generation later and it’s a virtual pandemic? I think it’s a smart ploy hatched by the tuna industry. Sorry, Charlie, Jiff survived. )

And what’s with the milk being so expensive? That’s just one of the items I buy when I need, regardless of price. But we bitch about gas being so expensive, but we let cow by-product cost nearly double that. And the cheese? Really is there a dairy shortage? (By the way, speaking of dairy, am I the only adult who thought eggs were dairy too. I mean they are in the dairy section….)

So here comes the part of the blog where we review what we’ve learned.

1. You can ‘t really pay for groceries in cash anymore. Unless you’re Daddy Warbucks and carry around stacks of Benjamins, you gotta do the debit card.
2. The creamy peanut butter people are subsidizing the chunky peanut butter crowd. Why have peanuts in your peanut butter when it’s already peanut butter? It’s like having mini marshmallows embedded in the puffy marshmallows. Hmmm, that sounds kind of good…Maybe those Lucky Charms “marshmallows”….
3. They charge more for pet food because, well, they know you’ll pay it.
4. If Folgers is ten bucks, I should start drinking tea.
5. Pretty soon, old people won’t even be able to afford cat food. Lord knows they can’t wash it down with milk. They’ll be using gasoline instead.

There are a lot of things about the grocery store that make me crazy, but the people who read my blog are easily distracted by moving objects, so half of them are already gone, and I’ll write more grocery woes another time. I’m gonna go feed the cat, make coffee and look for loose change in the couch cushions for my next trip to the store.

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