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2003-07-30 - 11:31 a.m.

So let's talk about butter...

(how's that for an opening line that should shoot me right to the top of the search engines?)

Anyhow, seriously, let's talk about butter, or at least the interesting experience Rhiannon and I had last night trying to obtain some butter.

See...we eat Popcorn...a lot of popcorn...probably more than the national average by a significant margin. We have a microwave popcorn popper, which works very well, and lets us control the amount of topping and salt, as opposed to those microwave bags which you get the amount they want you to have and LIKE it!

Regardless, we were out of popcorn, and butter to put on the popcorn, and also just about every foodstuff known to mankind, so it was grocery day. A necessary evil which strikes every 2 weeks or so.

So we go to the Small-Mart (so called because it isn't the Large Wal-Mart at the Mall, it's smaller, but usually has what we need), and start loading up the cart with 10 days worth of groceries.

Stop 1 is the Dairy section, because it's in the very back of the grocery area, so that your milk can get nice and warm by the time it gets to the checkout, and the milk and cheese that needs to be refrigerated can be at the very *bottom* of the cart, making it impossible to easily put them with the rest of the refigerator needing foods, which are at the very front of the store, thereby ending up on top of the cart.

Someday, I will also rant on the logic of putting the potato chip aisle back in the back as well, so you either have to put them in the toddler seating area or accept that you're not gonna have ruffles when you get home, you're gonna have crumbles.

Anyhow, we're back in the Dairy, and I'm looking for my butter. See...I'm a butter snob...I like Land O'Lakes salted butter for my popcorn. Nothing else quite does it right.

And it doesn't seem to be on the shelves...this isn't all that uncommon at the Small-Mart, since Wal-Mart's corporate strategy is to buy whatever they can in huge lots and then break them down to get to the small stores...and sometimes that means there's a shortage.

But, fortunately for me, there was one lonely package sitting on the shelf, mixed in with the generic store brand butter. So I grab it like it's the last lifeboat off the Titanic, and we continue our shopping plunder.

15 minutes or so later, we get to the checkout with our loot, and start to check out.

All goes well for a while, until they get to the butter. The cashier scans it, and instead of the reassuring "Yes, I found it and it costs $2.49" bleep we all know so well, we get the harsh blare of a "No, I'm sorry, you can't have that", generally received when buying cigarettes or beer unless the cashier has entered your birthdate into the register.

This elicits a weird look, because when last we checked, butter wasn't a controlled substance. Admittedly, some of the Health Nazis out there would *like* it to be, but they haven't succeeded yet...besides, all the *other* fattening (read "good tasting" foods) we were purchasing had gone through nice and smooth. The message on the register doesn't help much, reading simply "Item not allowed to be sold". Check the expiration date, and it's fine (sometime in OCtober).

So, the cashier scans it again...and again, the blare comes through. Lather, rinse, repeat until she realizes that 'Hmm...something isn't right here', turns her light to blinker and scans the rest of our stuff through while waiting for a CSR to come over.

Meanwhile, we're starting to make jokes about "Well, you see, if you combine the butter with fertilizer and just the right amount of slim jims, you can create a theronuclear device, so the Homeland Security Department has ordered it all off the shelves", to keep the folks in line behind us entertained while we wait. It's all about keeping the folks in line behind us entertained, because it keeps them from thinking we're deadbeats (since that same blare of "No butter for you" is also the blare used when the credit card/debit card/check gets declined).

Eventually, the CSR meanders over and asks "What's wrong?", the cashier tells her "This won't scan", and demonstrates, eliciting the blare of doom once again (now counting 11 times, I think we've established that it isn't working). The CSR says "Hmm...I'm not sure what's up, I'm going to have to check", and grabs the butter and walks away.

Meanwhile, our intrepid heros (that'd be me and Rhiannon, for those of you scoring at home) are standing there, totally checked out, expect for the butter, getting stares of "Just put the butter back, you fat fu*ks, and cope with margarine" from the lady behind us...but dammit, I want my butter...

So the CSR comes back and tells us Land O'Lakes butter has been recalled...thoughts of Tylenol poisoning and other similar incidents flash through our heads while she says "I'll go get you another box of butter", suspends our transaction (oooh...fancy computers...they can put a transaction on hold) and sprints off at a pace comparatively quick...if you're a three-toed sloth on depressants who has been dead for a week.

We consider just saying "Ya know, we'll just take what we've got and go", but damnit, I want my butter, and I've spent plenty of time standing behind other folks having similar issues, so no, I'm taking my 15 minutes of infamy and standing here.

Meanwhile, our patience is rewarded in the most wonderful of ways when the person behind us, who had been shooting us looks of "Get the Hell out of my way, lardbutts" gets her credit card declined and has to abandon her slimfast and crackers. Ahh, karma...gotta love it.

Eventually, the CSR comes back with a box of the generic stuff (bleah...but at least she got the salted/unsalted question right), rings us out, and we depart.

Found out eventually that in fact, yes, Land O'Lakes butter has been pulled off the shelves because of a manufacturing defect that may ahve caused some metal shavings to be in some butter...but still...if you were pulling stuff off the shelves, wouldn't you have TOLD the cashiers or at least the CSR's?

Guess not.

Okay...that's about it for now. One week and one day until vacation. Laters.

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