I will confess something. I fell in love this morning.
Backing up a few weeks...when we were here visiting, Iris took us to an atrocious grocery store. Barbaric. I even took a picture of the mountain folk in the store. It's called "Aldi". If you want a cart, you have to put a quarter in the lock on the cart. If you return the cart, you get your quarter back. You must bring you own bags. And those groceries don't jump in those home brought bags, either. I even made fun of the store to my family and one of my brothers told me it's a great store and he loves shopping there. Huh? Aldi's? ALLLLDI'S?
Well, I fell in love with Aldi today. Robin loves spaghetti. Her mother made some when we were staying with them. Robin thought it was the best sauced she ever had. (It wasn't bad, but I much prefer mine.) Money is super tight right now and spaghetti is cheap. Yesterday, when Iris and Joe were here so Joe could fix the toilet that wasn't broken, (Robin didn't know you're supposed to put the plastic shower curtain inside the shower. Did she really go to law school? Really?) Robin mentioned craving spaghetti. Iris asked if we'd been to "Aldi". "Not yet" we said but were both thinking "Hell no".
"You should go", said bossy Iris.
Silence.
Robin is a good daughter. She honestly is. And she behaves for her mother. That sounds funny, but she really does do what her mother tells her to. She had a blister on her thumb yesterday from doing something. This morning, the phone rang at 8:00. From the other room, I yelled, "Who was that?"
"It was my mother."
"It's 8:00! Why is she calling so early? Everything OK?"
"Yeah. She just called to tell me to put Neosporin on my thumb."
Jesus.
Next thing I heard was Robin in the bathroom, rifling through the cabinet looking for the Neosporin.
So because Iris said, "You should go", guess where we went.
As we approached the store, Robin asked me for a quarter. Again with the Jesus.
Then we got in there and I noticed an older nicely dressed lady. Saw a pretty young woman with an adorable (and clean) little girl. There was an old preppy looking cute man. I let my guard down a little and noticed that the store was actually not just clean and organized, but very clean and organized.
I won't bore you with the details, but this store is CHEAP! Let me just tell you that we got 26 items for $43.26. I am looking at the receipt. I have at least four dinners planned from what we got today. I have been talking about it all day. Oh yeah! My special water!!! (Not vodka, thank you.) I was spending $1.00 per bottle in FL on sparkling water. When we first got here and I really started watching money, I went to the "Dollar Store" for cleaning supplies. I was so happy (then) to get my special water at .66 per bottle. Guess how much it is at "Aldi". FIFTY FIVE CENTS!
(I won't risk the dog food there. Not yet anyway. We had to go across the street for that. Buy one get one free dog food, and we still spent $38+ on pet food and supplies.)
Back to Aldi. We had one bag with us. Afterall, I thought we were just going in for a jar of sauce. Almost filled the cart. No worries. They would have bags in the, uh, bag it yourself section. No bags. I saw a box. Opened it - full of tools. Guess it would have been rude to dump them out. So the only not pleasant part of the shopping experience was stuffing my purse with the things we could, then figuring out what to do with the rest. We left it all in the cart. Robin took the one bag and my purse to the car and told me to go return the cart and get my quarter back. Not thinking, that's what I did. I was on such a shopping high, it didn't occur to me to wheel the cart to the car, unload, then return it. No. I needed my quarter back now. So I struggled to get a frozen pizza, a frozen whole chicken, a 12 pack of soda and three litters of special water out of the cart AS I tried to get the quarter back. It was quite tricky. Kinda like shutting the electric garage door from inside when you need to be outside. Did that the other day, a few times. This garage is much bigger than what I am used to.
Got my quarter back and Robin came to help me with the rest. The frozen chicken was stuck to my arm like that kid's tongue in that Christmas movie. Maybe I'll put some Neosporin on it.
Backing up a few weeks...when we were here visiting, Iris took us to an atrocious grocery store. Barbaric. I even took a picture of the mountain folk in the store. It's called "Aldi". If you want a cart, you have to put a quarter in the lock on the cart. If you return the cart, you get your quarter back. You must bring you own bags. And those groceries don't jump in those home brought bags, either. I even made fun of the store to my family and one of my brothers told me it's a great store and he loves shopping there. Huh? Aldi's? ALLLLDI'S?
Well, I fell in love with Aldi today. Robin loves spaghetti. Her mother made some when we were staying with them. Robin thought it was the best sauced she ever had. (It wasn't bad, but I much prefer mine.) Money is super tight right now and spaghetti is cheap. Yesterday, when Iris and Joe were here so Joe could fix the toilet that wasn't broken, (Robin didn't know you're supposed to put the plastic shower curtain inside the shower. Did she really go to law school? Really?) Robin mentioned craving spaghetti. Iris asked if we'd been to "Aldi". "Not yet" we said but were both thinking "Hell no".
"You should go", said bossy Iris.
Silence.
Robin is a good daughter. She honestly is. And she behaves for her mother. That sounds funny, but she really does do what her mother tells her to. She had a blister on her thumb yesterday from doing something. This morning, the phone rang at 8:00. From the other room, I yelled, "Who was that?"
"It was my mother."
"It's 8:00! Why is she calling so early? Everything OK?"
"Yeah. She just called to tell me to put Neosporin on my thumb."
Jesus.
Next thing I heard was Robin in the bathroom, rifling through the cabinet looking for the Neosporin.
So because Iris said, "You should go", guess where we went.
As we approached the store, Robin asked me for a quarter. Again with the Jesus.
Then we got in there and I noticed an older nicely dressed lady. Saw a pretty young woman with an adorable (and clean) little girl. There was an old preppy looking cute man. I let my guard down a little and noticed that the store was actually not just clean and organized, but very clean and organized.
I won't bore you with the details, but this store is CHEAP! Let me just tell you that we got 26 items for $43.26. I am looking at the receipt. I have at least four dinners planned from what we got today. I have been talking about it all day. Oh yeah! My special water!!! (Not vodka, thank you.) I was spending $1.00 per bottle in FL on sparkling water. When we first got here and I really started watching money, I went to the "Dollar Store" for cleaning supplies. I was so happy (then) to get my special water at .66 per bottle. Guess how much it is at "Aldi". FIFTY FIVE CENTS!
(I won't risk the dog food there. Not yet anyway. We had to go across the street for that. Buy one get one free dog food, and we still spent $38+ on pet food and supplies.)
Back to Aldi. We had one bag with us. Afterall, I thought we were just going in for a jar of sauce. Almost filled the cart. No worries. They would have bags in the, uh, bag it yourself section. No bags. I saw a box. Opened it - full of tools. Guess it would have been rude to dump them out. So the only not pleasant part of the shopping experience was stuffing my purse with the things we could, then figuring out what to do with the rest. We left it all in the cart. Robin took the one bag and my purse to the car and told me to go return the cart and get my quarter back. Not thinking, that's what I did. I was on such a shopping high, it didn't occur to me to wheel the cart to the car, unload, then return it. No. I needed my quarter back now. So I struggled to get a frozen pizza, a frozen whole chicken, a 12 pack of soda and three litters of special water out of the cart AS I tried to get the quarter back. It was quite tricky. Kinda like shutting the electric garage door from inside when you need to be outside. Did that the other day, a few times. This garage is much bigger than what I am used to.
Got my quarter back and Robin came to help me with the rest. The frozen chicken was stuck to my arm like that kid's tongue in that Christmas movie. Maybe I'll put some Neosporin on it.
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