Q-TIP DAY AT THE STOOPIDMARKET

I spend a lot of time at the grocery store: I freely admit it.

It’s not so much that I have adopted the European habit of shopping for my ingredients on the very day I plan to prepare them, although I am moving in that general direction.  It’s just that it’s so damned convenient, what with there being several options within a relatively short distance.

In the immediate area, there’s a Trader Joe, and across the Main Drag from that a Whole Paycheck Foods.  Go a little farther afield, and you have a Fresh Market and a Publix.  Next up are two Krogers, one south of us (the nicer one) and one eastward.  I haven’t even mentioned Target, which offers groceries as well, since the only grocery item we purchase there on a regular basis is coffee for our Keurig machine.  Hell, there’s even a Wal-Mart, if you want to enjoy Cautionary Fashion Statements while you shop.

Of all of these, I tend to gravitate toward the Publix.  It’s not the best store in town, but they carry most of what we need... and I know where almost everything is.  (When I go to Kroger, I spend half the time wandering around aimlessly, trying to figure out where the fuck they stash the peanut butter.)

Wednesdays are always extra fun, because that is the day that seniors - people 60 and over - get a five per cent discount... and judging solely by the number of Superannuated Folk that show up on Wednesdays, you would think they were giving away free sides of beef.

I can’t be too much of a Smart-Aleck here, because I get that five percent discount... and, sad to say, I don’t even have to remind the cashiers.  (Bastards.)  They try to be politically correct - it’s called a Transaction Discount on the receipt - but nobody is fooling anybody.  It is the Old Guy Discount, and even though its impact on my grocery bill is comparable to that of a fart in a windstorm, I’m not so proud or vain that I will turn it down.

Membership in the Old Guy Club has its privileges, after all.