I Just Need to Grab Two Things: A Grocery Store Odyssey

The optimism is always the most painful part.

You stand at the entrance of the grocery store — let's say it's a Kroger, a Trader Joe's, a Whole Foods if you're having a moment — and you think: This will take ten minutes, tops. You have two items on your mental list. You know where they are. You are a focused adult with places to be and a complete handle on the situation.

Forty-three minutes later, you are standing in the checkout line holding things you cannot explain, and the two items you came in for are still on the shelf somewhere behind you.

Here is exactly how it happens.

The Confident Entry

You don't grab a cart because you only need two things. This is your first mistake, and you will not recognize it as a mistake until you are carrying seven items in your arms like a person who has never heard of a basket.

You also don't grab a basket, because you only need two things, and grabbing a basket feels like a commitment you're not ready to make. Baskets are for people who have lists. You have a brain. You'll be fine.

You walk in with purpose. You know where you're going. You have a route.

The Produce Section Detour

You don't even need produce. You walked past produce on purpose, specifically to avoid the produce section. And yet somehow you are in the produce section.

This is because grocery stores are architecturally designed by people who understand human psychology better than you understand yourself. The layout is not accidental. The fresh flowers at the entrance are not accidental. The samples are definitely not accidental.

You pick up an avocado. You don't need an avocado. You put it down. You pick up a different avocado. You put both of them in the crook of your arm because you might make guacamole this weekend, which you have been saying every weekend for four months.

The Sample Situation

There is a person standing next to a small table with a crockpot on it and a stack of tiny paper cups, and they are making eye contact with you.

You were not going to stop. You had no intention of stopping. But you've already made eye contact, and now stopping feels polite and not stopping feels rude, and so you stop.

The sample is fine. It's a soup. You didn't know you wanted soup. You now feel like you need soup. There are four cans of this soup stacked into a small pyramid next to the table, and the sign says it's on sale, and you think about winter, and how soup is good in winter, and how it's almost winter, and you put two cans in your arm alongside the avocados.

You have now been in the store for eleven minutes and have not yet reached the section containing either of your two items.

The Cereal Aisle Paralysis

You don't need cereal. You walked into the cereal aisle because it's on the way to where you're going, and also because some part of your brain remembered that you're almost out of cereal, which may or may not be true.

There are forty-seven varieties of cereal on this shelf. You know this because you have now read all of them. You've been standing here for six minutes. A child walked past you twice and you didn't notice.

The problem is that the cereal you usually buy has been moved, or discontinued, or possibly never existed and you've been misremembering it for years. You pick up three different boxes to compare sugar content, which you don't actually care about, and then put them all back and grab the one with the mascot you've trusted since childhood.

You add it to the pile in your arms. You now need a cart. You do not go get a cart.

The Discovery of the New Thing

Every grocery trip contains at least one new thing that didn't exist the last time you came in, or that you simply never noticed before, and which now feels essential.

Today it's a flavored sparkling water you've never seen, or a limited-edition Oreo variety, or some kind of grain you read about in an article three weeks ago and thought you'd never find in a regular store. You hold it. You look at it. You think about the version of yourself that buys this and incorporates it into a meal.

It goes in the pile.

The Checkout Line Switch

You choose a line. You always choose wrong. This is not a matter of probability — it is a cosmic law that the line you pick will be the one where the register needs a price check, or someone is paying with a check, or the cashier is being trained and everything takes three times as long as it should.

You look at the other lines. They are moving. You consider switching. You decide against it because you've already committed. The line stops moving entirely. You switch lines. The line you just left immediately starts moving again.

You stand in your new line and stare straight ahead.

The Drive Home

You put the bags in the back seat. You feel, briefly, like a person who has their life together. You went to the store and you got things and now you're going home.

You pull into your driveway. You carry the bags inside. You start putting things away.

And then, slowly, the understanding arrives.

The bread is not in any of these bags. Neither is the sparkling water. You have avocados, soup, cereal, a scented candle you have no memory of picking up, and something in a paper bag from the bakery section that you're genuinely excited about but did not plan for.

You did not get the two things you went in for.

You will need to go back tomorrow. You will only need two things. It will take ten minutes, tops.