What's in your shopping cart?

 

What’s in your shopping cart?

By Debra L. Karplus

I like to believe that I’m neither judgmental nor nosy, but when I’m out shopping, I can be a real snoop.  I’m referring to going into a brick and mortar store with real metal or plastic shopping carts to get groceries or things for the house, not online shopping with a virtual checkout and cart.  Since I’m not or rounding up young candy-craving children or checking my cell phone,  I have much opportunity to study what’s in other people’s shopping carts as I stand in the line and try to guess what their lives might be like based on what they’re purchasing.

Though admittedly, not a particularly patient person, retired, I’m rarely in a hurry, so it’s no inconvenience to wait in the longer slower line, which  happens nearly 100% of the time, and peruse contents of shopping carts of strangers.  At least one local supermarket, which shall remain nameless, has only one line which filters into several registers.  I’m in supermarket heaven while shopping there!

Recently, I spotted someone I knew while at the pharmacy.  I don’t think I’ve ever needed a cart at CVS or Walgreens.  But, in her cart were adult diapers.  She didn’t seem embarrassed, but I certainly was.  I could barely make eye contact. 

A male friend of mine told me he shopped with his foster daughter for feminine hygiene products.  Well, that’s just darn weird, in my opinion.

Typically, even before the pandemic and early morning senior hours, I shop in the morning.  Being a morning person, I find fewer crowds, thus I can shop relatively quickly, especially if it’s a store where I shop often and know where items are; I maintain a master list for weekly groceries and know the layout of the store.  The early morning shoppers seem speedy also.  When I see a customer with a cart filled with yummy treats, donuts, for example, I assume they’re en route to their job and are bringing the goodies.  I wonder where they work and what their job is.

Often, a shopper will have a cart filled with alcohol and party foods.  Though not, much of a drinker, I’m still curious about what sort of party they might be hosting, though rarely do I ask.

The dinner hour grocery shoppers, (and there are many), and usually waiting in long lines at checkout, are coming after work, I suspect, and trying to throw together some ideas for tonight’s dinner.  I try to avoid food shopping between the hours of four and six.

When I see someone, especially a shopper with children, pushing a cart filled with what I consider to be junk food, I have to exercise utmost discipline not to scold them about the evils of poor eating, though I myself may have been spotted with a bucket of ice cream, or an occasional indiscretion with a box of Hostess Snowbells in my cart, though I try to conceal it by strategically placing my large bag of oranges, salad greens, avocadoes or red potatoes over the top.

I also keep quiet when I see a cart with healthy foods.  Though, when shopping at Common Ground, I see so many interesting and different foods and beverages, that sometimes I occasionally do ask the shopper, because I’m open to trying new and healthy foods.

I’ve often shopped at Walmart where I have been in checkout behind someone with a very full cart of items such as many gallons of milks and some snack items individually wrapped like fruit chews or chips.  I deduce that they’re shopping for a day care.

I’m a different person when shopping at the big box home improvement store, Lowe’s, Home Depot, and Menards.  Since I love to tinker at home on small tasks, I’m always really intrigued when I see unfamiliar hardware in someone’s cart, especially those really big flat carts.  And, yes, I find myself asking “what project is that for?”  For me, these stores are an educational experience and plant the seed for some ambitious projects I may someday tackle, or maybe not.

Speaking of planting seeds, I find shopping at farm stores, Farm and Fleet and Rural King to be a great adventure.  I am and always have been a city girl, so it’s a whole other world to saunter through the aisles of these places.

So, confess, now’s your time to come clean.  When you’re out and about, don’t you shop with at least a thread of curiosity about the contents of people’ shopping carts?