Shopping With Big Al (A Re-Run From Nine Years Ago)

Mark and I went to the supermarket today, and I was amazed at how fast the price of things are going up. I am actually starting to appreciate Mark's coupon clipping and sale searches. We went to the CVS store the other day and they almost owed Mark money by the time he was done with his coupons. Thirty dollars worth of stuff for a little over five dollars, even the store manager was impressed.

When I was a kid, I don't ever remember my mom doing the grocery shopping. That was my dad's job and I think it was like a game to him. It would start with the shopping list my mom would make up over the course of the week. Then early Saturday morning, my dad would go over it, comparing what my mom needed, to what was on sale at the supermarkets. Next, he would list everything by which store had the cheapest price for that item, with sub-categories for those items he had coupons for, with sub-sub-categories for those items with coupons that were also on sale, below the cheapest price possible. When all was in order, he would get into the gigantic, empty, Ford Station Wagon, with all the seats folded down and head out. Never were children allowed on my dad's grocery shopping safari's. We not only would get in the way of his well oiled shopping machine, but we would take up precious space needed for the quarter ton of food that our large family would consume over the course of the next seven days. Like the great white hunter, off he went to Jewel, National, Motto's, Dominick's, and some other markets that I didn't even know existed. After what could only be called speed shopping, my dad would return a couple of hours later with the station wagon full, and groaning, under the weight of a weeks worth of food. Then with a loud bellow, he would call for all his offspring to help unload the Ford. Like a line of worker ants, I and my siblings would grab bag after bag of groceries from the car and trudge up the steps to the kitchen. It is quite the opposite of when I shop on my own. I just grab whatever looks good to me. I am a sucker for a shiny package, and I am totally susceptible to an elderly woman cooking stuff, and giving it away at the end of the aisles. That's why it's a good thing I have Mark and his coupons to shop for me, he is never distracted from his mission, more for less.

Big Al and the Big Ford