Christmas Eve Shopping

Unbelievable and highly entertaining.
I made several stops today, all over the place.
First was Bashas.  Since I was giving away my Holiday roast and my Standing Rib Roast that I bought last month is in the freezer, well, had to get another one.

It was 10:00am or so and that place was PACKED.   I mean, I know tomorrow a lot of places are going to be closed, but I had no expectation to find that kind of crowd in a grocery store that early.  I go to the back to the meat department  - Standing Rib Roasts out. Ring the buzzer - guy says there are none but they will have some in about an hour as they sent someone to get them.  He then informs me they are going to be small.

No thanks.  I got a ham, though, cause they were on stupid sale and couldn't pass it up.  The line was LONG.  There were no self-serve aisles in that store, so I stood there listening to 2 men babbling away in front of me while a container of carpet fresh stuff was spilling out onto the floor - the guy had it in his hands.  I finally said something, nothing crass, just, umm, do you know you are losing the contents of your container on the floor?  I point to the floor which is covered with the granules.  Oh, they said, thanks for telling us.  Every container we picked up was leaking.  They put that think on the belt and covered the belt with it, too.  Personally, I wouldn't buy something that is losing it's contents, but that's just me.

I was surprised to hear the lady working the checkout telling customers Merry Christmas instead of this "Happy Holiday" junk.  That was pretty cool.  I wished her the same after I was done.

Drove over to the next Basha's.  Lots of people there, but nothing like the first one.  I walk to the back.  No Standing Rib Roasts out there, either, but, I overheard a gentleman talking to an employee - meat department that is - telling him what he wanted.  Standing Rib Roast.  Okay, then.  I waited until he came back out with a very nice looking roast and asked him if there were any more.  Yup, we just cut them to order.  Great, give me one like what that guy just got.  Nice.

Out of there, onto Walmart.  Needed a new phone cord, one of the dogs destroyed it last night.  Place was packed.  I wandered around, but, I am not buying a lot of presents this year.  My mother, my oldest brother and something for my son, that's it.  After a bit of searching, I found where the cords are.  They were sold out of the 25 foot cords, which is what I needed.  Nevertheless, I'm there, got some dog food and a few other things, got into a line, heard a few people going off, left.  Saw Gamestop in the same strip mall - just what I was looking for - a gift card for Caleb, that's all he's getting from me for Christmas after spending a lot of money to get that old car going so he could start driving.   Not a long line there, but the 2 people that were at the counters were taking FOREVER to make up their mind and buy what they were going to buy.

Over to Fry's electronics.  I wandered around that store looking at everything.  One can dream.  Got a 25 foot phone cord and got out of there.  The line was at least 50 people long, but when there are 30 cash registers going (at least), it isn't a particularly long wait.

Fry's Food Stores.  Made up in my mind that if something went wrong in there, I would just keep it zipped, smile, say Merry Christmas and move on.  Unless, of course, it turned into an incident such as with the meat department person over a year ago that wanted to get into a fistfight................

They didn't have any white dinner rolls left.  Well, they had one bag - it was opened.  I am NOT buying a bag of opened rolls.  The store's general manager - of whom I have had a large number of interactions with but none recently as I gave up on the self-service checkout junk and the terrible service there in reference to asking them to make it WORK - was standing there in the bakery department.  I asked him if there were any of those rolls in the back.  He went back, nothing.  Got the lady running that department and asked her. No.  Funny to be out of dinner rolls the morning before Christmas day, when they are getting nearer to closing time, sure, but it was all day before that was going to happen.

The manager said he would look in a different part of the bakery where they must have had some, nothing there.  Instead, there were pre-packaged rolls, not the store's freshly baked stuff.  Well who cares, I'll take whatever they had.  The lady running the bakery started giving me a rather lengthy description of the different types of rolls that were on those shelves.  Thanks.  I didn't really need an explanation - they're just rolls - but I listened. I then went to get some bacon.  The stuff that was supposed to be on sale was - out.  16 oz Tyson bacon for $1.99.  Great price.  Gone.  They had some other bacon - 12 oz - for the same price.  Less product, but it  was still the best price per ounce left available - I'm having a Cobb salad with my prime rib tomorrow, thanks.

Getting out of there and wishing a lot of people Merry Christmas, I headed to the cigar place.  I wasn't going to have one this weekend but, it's Christmas.  I'm going to stop smoking them for several months - at least.  I just don't need an addiction, a potentially harmful one at that.

Home.  Stuff.  People. Issues.  Empty room that needs rented.  On and on.  The people showed up for the roast, got to talking and I was glad to help them.  My sick neighbor - has pneumonia - finally showed up outside.  He STILL sounded and looked bad.  Talked awhile.  Darkness.  Christmas lights on.  I'm in the Christmas spirit.

Leave out some milk and cookies for Santa?

Lol.

G'nite.

ben