Shopping At The Speed Of Light

Since Fairway is one of the only stores in Manhattan (possibly the only store?) that has an actual parking lot, it's an ideal place to go for a quick shopping run during alternate side of the street parking times. (Otherwise known as the time of day when the Department Of Sanitation says "We don't care where you move your car for the next hour and a half, but you can't have it HERE!")

The thing is, though, that in order to get to and from Fairway and get back in time to get a parking space on our block a half an hour before alternate side of the street parking was over (see yesterday's post if you don't understand why this is so important), we'd have to get all of our shopping done in under 30 minutes. This is not an easy thing to do, nor is it particularly pleasurable for me, but I was up for the challenge. To help us save time, though, I requested that my friend not park in the farthest spot away from the store (something she likes to do because she thinks it's good exercise!)

So, we arrived at the store, got our grocery carts and I yelled "I'm ditching you now! See you at the cash registers in 30 minutes!" and the race was on. But what do you think I discovered once I entered the store? -They'd REARRANGED it! They do this every now and then. Completely rearrange the store, even down to changing the aisles so that they run horizontally instead of vertically! I think they do this just to mess with our heads. Now I not only had to get through the entire store in less than half an hour, I also had to figure out where the heck everything was!

So off I went grabbing pretty much everything I saw with little time to compare prices or expiration dates. Organic, non organic, bagged, boxed, loose... everything went into the cart. Who knew if I'd have room in my fridge at home. Who knew if there'd be room in the car! I didn't have time to think about little details like that!

At ten minutes to go I was having trouble finding cheddar cheese. I saw a block of orange colored cheese and was just about to throw it in my cart when I realized the label said SOY cheese. Soy cheese? What the heck section was I in??? Eventually I found the cheddar cheese. There was very little of it left. Not surprisingly, there was soy cheese left in abundance.

At five minutes to go I felt like I was on one of those game shows. The ones where the contestants have a certain number of minutes to run around a supermarket and throw everything they can into their shopping carts before the buzzer goes off? That was me.

At three minutes to go I accosted a woman in the organic section and yelled "Where are the tampons!? Do you know where the heck they moved the TAMPONS???!"

To which she replied: "I can't find anything either. And what the heck did they do with The Cold Room? I couldn't find anything in there!"

Miraculously I was able to find the tampons (right across from the pasta... why didn't I think to look there first? I always think "Tampons? Maybe they're in the pasta section!") and then in the final stretch I managed to find rice (one aisle over from where I expected it) and Parmalat milk (exactly where I expected it.)

I got to the register, my friend pulled her cart in behind me just 2 minutes later, and we made it back and into a parking spot at exactly the right time. Mission accomplished.

Each of us then took turns sitting in the car with the keys while the other ran groceries up to their apartment. And that's when I met "Art" ...