Grocery stores bring out the monster in me

Seriously, I hate grocery shopping. I have got avoiding grocery shopping down to a science. Every non-perishable that Sam's sells, I order to pick up at my store. Then I go to publix and get the perishables, which are generally in the very back of the store. Today my husband and I grabbed lunch, and he announced he needed to get a hair cut, so we went to Kroger instead so he could get a hair cut at the supercuts next to kroger, and I could go grocery shopping. Bella sleeps every second we're out of the house, so why not?

So my husband gets his hair cut while I run into the grocery store to buy 6 objects

1) milk

2) bread

3) chicken

4) pork

5) hamburger meat

Simple, right?

Before I begin to bash this store, let me make you aware that my absolute favorite grocery store in the world is the Kroger that was next store to my shop, but here in Athens they don't like to organize their stores logically (seriously, the honey is in the middle of the freezer section at this random stand alone shelf, everything is nuts like that), and somehow they have more people in the stores than Atlanta ever did.

So I walk into the store, get my buggy, get Bella all set up, and walk the mile to the back of the store through impressively narrow aisles, chock full of people who are by all appearances just standing there! It takes me about ten minutes to get to the back of the store thanks to the hundred or so women who stand on one side of the aisle intently reading the ketchup labels, and have their cart on the other, and don't notice you until you actually have to ask them to please move, and then get all angry about it like you're being rude.

I get the milk,the bread and the hamburger meat, then I make a beeline for the chicken when Bella wakes up and promptly bursts into tears. I give her the pacifier and try to sooth her, momentarily becoming one of those morons who block the aisles, and slowly make my way to the pork.

Now Bella is shrieking inconsolably. I take her out of her car seat and hold her while looking at the pork, without really seeing it, just trying to find the stupid pork chops and get the heck out of the store. She quiets for a second but then starts to cry wondering why I'm not feeding her (because she ate 20 minutes ago, but she only ate for like 5 minutes and then would not eat any more, so I sort of figured she'd be hungry soon) I tell her I'm sorry and we'll be out of here in one second, well aware I'm being glared at from all angles by people wondering why I've got a screaming baby in the grocery store.

Finally my brain clears enough to see the pork chops, grab them, and try to get to the registers.... on the other side of the store. Nice.

Bella goes back in her car seat, a fact she does not appreciate, refuses her pacifier, and screams all the way to the door. This baby has never cried longer that one or two minutes at a time in her life! Then again, I've never actually not fed her the second she starts rooting and before she even begins to cry either, so it makes sense for her to be distressed, and who likes grocery stores? I don't even want to be there, why should she?

I try to get through the congested aisle, maneuvering my way around these three women who are chatting in the middle of an aisle about some recipe. As they move their carts to allow me to pass their conversation stops, when I get past they begin a conversation about how they would never allow their children to scream and cry in a store, and one of them said something about how she has such a headache now, and something else then the word inconsiderate.

I snapped. I turned around, taking the baby out of the car seat as I turned, and said "I can hear you, you know? In case you haven't noticed the exit is that way, I am trying to leave, I would have been out of here thirty minutes ago before she even woke up if it wasn't for jackasses like you taking up the whole freaking walkway."

Then we turned back around and picked our way through the crowd in a very slow motion dramatic exit. I finally got to the register, finally checked out, finally got out the door, and the baby stopped crying the instant we got outside.

I hear you sweetheart