Produce = Fruit and Vegetables, You Dumb Whore

Does Kroger not train the people they hire to bag your groceries in even the basics of bagging groceries? Even if they don't, haven't most people who are bagging groceries also actually purchased groceries at some point? You would think that was the case, but evidently not.

I piled the kids into the car and headed over to the Edgewood Retail District Kroger here in Atlanta. (I used to go to the relatively new one closest to my house, but since putting in the even newer one at Edgewood, the one closer to me has become the "hood" Kroger, where you have to strap your purse into the buggy so as not to have it lifted. Okay, that is an exaggeration, but i do it anyway.) We got out of the car, went inside, snagged the last of the "racecarts" and were on our way to filling that baby to brimming. Rollie was holding the produce in the cab with him, while Matilda was watching over the bread and my purse up in the top, rear-facing seat.

The method of execution here, for those of you who have never taken two under three years of age to the grocery store, is to keep both kids in the buggy AT ALL TIMES. This prevents the toddler knocking over displays while running around, and the infant is able to watch your face while you animatedly sing and dance as shopping, preventing her from wailing the entire time. This becomes a balancing act: You must map out your order of objects in the buggy so as to make room for both kids in buggy and keep kids from crushing the soft items, while also making sure that the raw meat doesn't touch produce or children. And you people thought I sat around all day eating bon-bons. Motherhood is enough to make a logistician's head whirl.

I proceed to the checkout, where a youngish (late teens?) girl begins bagging my groceries while I am unloading the buggy. By the time that I finish unloading, pry the candy Rollie has taken off the display shelves out of his hands, (FUCK the person who came up with the brilliant marketing idea of blocking checkouts with an obstacle course of cheap toys and sugary candy) and move up to the counter to pay the bill, I realize our brilliant bag girl has started loading my groceries into another buggy. The other buggy is not a racecar, so only has seating for one child. This means I will have to push a VERY full buggy of food and an infant in the buggy, while grasping the hand of the toddler to get to the car. Anyone who has been to Edgewood retail district can attest to the fact that it is not the most brilliantly planned parking lot in history. They can also attest to the fact that its patrons are predominately single and childless, meaning that in their world, they don't think about things like darting children or runaway grocery buggies while they are rolling through (or completely ignoring) stop signs. I think about asking her to move the groceries back into the racecart, but am completely distracted by her putting the chicken breasts into a bag with the tomatoes!!!!!! WHAT!?

I say: "Can you put the produce and meat into separate bags, please?"
[Brilliant bag girl stares blankly at me, then decides she will "humor" the crazy lady.] As if I am the only person who ever shopped at this Kroger who prefers not to give myself and my family food poisoning.
The cashier says to her, "'Produce' means fruits and vegetables."

Realizing that she is not going to do a great job, i watch as she does things like put canned goods into a bag with my bread, which i promptly save from sure death, or put a 12-pack of Diet Coke on top of the bag of lettuce and mushrooms. (I guess I should just be thankful that she put two vegetables together in a bag instead of taking a pocket knife, cutting open a container of raw beef roast, and pouring its bloody juices into the bag of lettuce.)

I manage to get Matilda moved from the racecart into the new buggy, and then tell Rollie to get out of the cab of the car. He looks at me like I am crazy, as his feet have never actually touched the floor on the inside of a grocery store. We head out to the car, dodging speedy gay men in convertibles and hung over college kids clutching their Starbucks, all the while trying to contain the hawing of the buggy, which, of course, is one of those much-coveted buggies that needs a wheel realignment. Try to steer one of those babies with one hand! I strap the kids in, then unload the buggy with haste, return it to the corral and sink into my car seat with exhaustion.