Supermarket Weep

You know what household task I really despise?

Grocery Shopping.

And mostly because I do it at awful, awful times such as, you know, Monday thru Friday right about 5pm or on Sundays. And freaking EVERYBODY AND THEIR MOTHER goes grocery shopping on Sundays. And don't even get me started about going to Costco on Sunday and keeping my sanity. Not Gonna Happen. Especially not when you roll up to Costco and there is a big yellow bus outside which you later find out is carrying the entire population of a local Home for the Blind. But that, my friends, is another story.

So yesterday, I'm trying all day to gear myself up to go fight the masses at the grocery store. I know the produce section will be raked, the aisles will be packed, and the bread will not be hot. Oooh, hot bread? That is one of the only benefits of hitting up the store on the way home from work on a weeknight. The entire place smells like a San Francisco Sourdough bread bowl, which is like my own personal kryptonite. Can't. Leave. Store. Without. Bread. Anyway, so I'm gearing up for a Sunday grocery Bonanza Of FAIL and I get this brilliant idea: I will go to Whole Foods! It's right around the corner and it will make the task at hand so much more fun.

You see, I love Whole Foods. I love their entire produce department, the bulk section gets me all giddy, and pretty much everyone in my life knows I want to make out with the cheese section. Don't even get me started on the Health & Beauty Section. Last night I almost bought a Bucky on impulse (our heater is broken you all and it is COLD in our house -- wah wah). But yes, you read that right, I almost made a $39 IMPULSE BUY. I have no control in that store. NO CONTROL. Going there is like my own personal culinary Disneyland and the problem is that I usually leave there with about $100 of groceries that fit into two bags. And that is mostly because the courtesy clerk is trying to be polite by bagging up my enormous jug of 100% Organic Sonoma County Apple Cider in a separate bag all alone, so as to not crush the delicate rosemary crackers to go with my $15 sliver of Emmentaler in the other bag. God Whole Foods turns me into such a yuppie douchebag, but I just love it! And it just makes the whole process of grocery shopping that much more enjoyable. And frankly, I rationalize it in my head because I usually shop at Raley's and shopping at Raley's instead of Whole Foods to save money is like slumming it in a Lamborghini because that Bentley is just so overpriced that it's gross, God.

So the point of this story (THE POINT!) is that I went to Whole Foods last night to pick up some groceries, I did the entire store A to Z and loved every minute of it -- picking up some sundry items like pumpkin spice soy milk for my coffee (YUM!), greek yogurt, cayenne pepper hummus for our lunches this week, and an enormous bunch of kale that they were practically giving away for 69 cents among other things -- and I was all excited about all my various purchases until I got up this morning. When I opened up the hummus to throw in our lunches I got a pretty nasty whiff, but ya know, it was "Probiotic Hummus" (I know) so I thought to myself, maybe it's a bit more tart than your regular hummus -- I dig. Until I looked at the date on the side of the container -- Use by November 9, 2009.

HUH?

So then I checked our yogurts. And one of those had a funky date. Oh, and then my head exploded. And man was that a bitch to clean up at 7am before I had even had a cup of coffee (the pumpkin spice soy was fine, btw).

WHAT THE HELL, WHOLE FOODS?

And this is not the first time this has happened. The last time I was there I picked up this basil cheese spread because we were having some last minute guests over and even though the date was just fine, the entire container was crawling with mold. I didn't return the cheese because it was kind of a pain, and then I sort of forgot about it in the back of the frigde (science project!), and after my years spent in retail where people came in complaining and returning items for the most RIDICULOUS reasons, I'm sort of hardwired against the whole situation unless it's extreme -- but honestly? November 9th? I think it's about time these transgressions finally get noted.

I'm so annoyed to get home with a weeks worth of groceries just to have to head back in to the belly of the beast at about 5pm tonight!