Supermarket No-Nos

A friend recently confessed to me that he is bewildered by the shelves and shelves of toothpaste offerings.  Each time he goes to the store to pick out toothpaste, he forgets the exact branding of his favorite one.  He knows the manufacturer – but they make dozens of varieties.  He knows he wants mint, but doesn’t know which version.  He likes peppermint, but doesn’t know if peppermint translates to cool mint, fresh mint or ultra mint in toothpaste-ese.  The other day, he said, he opened the box of what he thought he wanted and tasted – to make sure!  He had to, he said.  He had no choice.  If the labels made more sense, he would be able to figure them out.

I’ve had my own supermarket no-no.  Sometimes, I need more twist ties than I seem to be able to collect from old bread packaging or from buying produce.  I hunt and save and collect twist ties at will, but every once in a while, I run completely out.  I know this shouldn’t matter, that there are greater issues in the universe to worry about, but when I don’t have a single twist tie in the drawer that should house them, I am unsettled until I can go to the produce department and tie a few extra ones around the plastic bags of potatoes or oranges I buy.  Home, I put the extras away feeling guilty and relieved at the same time.

What are your supermarket confessions?  Do you sample the grapes?  Open packages?  Pocket a free sample to take home to your pet?  Go ahead and let us know.  We understand . . . sort of.