Boycotting Albertson's

(at least for the rest of the day)

Why? Because of today's shopping experience...

Today I had planned to finish Christmas shopping for my mom who is now visiting. She was the only person left (besides Tom) who I had to buy for and since I didn't have to ship her gifts I had a little more extra time to shop. So I got to the mall right as it opened and was finished with shopping by 10:30am. Next on my list were a few errands and then grocery shopping and my plan was to be back home by noon so I could spend the rest of the day baking/cooking for the week's festivities. We have something planned every night so I wanted to use today as a preparation day. I was going to make another Gingerbread spice cake, another batch of sausage/cheese balls and I found a recipe online for date/nut cream cheese bread that sounded so good so I wanted to try that. So I rushed through my errands, zoomed through the grocery store and was home by 12:04! For once, ON SCHEDULE! Well as I'm putting the groceries away I realize, hmmm where's the cream cheese for my cream cheese bread? Then...wait, there's no pork sausage for my sausage balls and Dag nam it! There's no cheddar cheese either!!!! I checked my receipt and there was at least one entire bag of groceries missing. All of my refrigerated stuff, including lunch meats and sliced cheeses I had waited in line for at the deli counter!!! Oh I was not happy about this. If it was just the stupid cream cheese I could have waited but it was the majority of my ingredients that I needed to use for baking!!! And I made sure that ALL the groceries were out of my cart when I brought it back to the cart return. I learned that lesson after leaving a case of beer on the bottom shelf of the shopping cart, not once, but twice. I shouldn't have just admitted that.

So, I'm back in the car, rush over to the grocery store and head to the check out girl that helped me. Of course there is no sign of my bag. They tell me just to grab the items that were misplaced. UGH!!!! So I waited BACK IN LINE for lunch meat and sliced cheeses at the deli counter, and Oh - My - God, the guy was S-O-O-O-O S-L-O-W. It was obviously his first time operating the slice machine because he had to stop every few slices and ask for help. After that, I got my cream cheese and shredded cheddar and then ran to the other side of the store for the pork sausage....which....THEY WERE NOW OUT OF!!!! So now, I'm really not happy about this, but I'm not one to make a big deal out of things (except on here) so I was polite and just asked to have the money refunded. Oh that was a cluster f*ck in and of itself. They told me that I could just drive to the other Albertson's in the next town over because they probably have more in stock. I said, no thanks to that and then they said they could check the shipment schedule for the sausage and see when the next truck load comes in. At this point I'm about ready to pop but I calmly continue to tell them that I'd just like my refund NOW please. I had called my sister in the midst of this debacle and she said that she will pick some up for me later in the day at VONS.

Of course I know in the big scheme of things this is nothing to wad my panties over but still, it was just a waste of time and energy. And unfortunately, this is not the first time this has happened at this store. I'm not going to make any remarks about the attention span of the baggers at the store but like everything, there is always room for improvement. So to end on a positive note I will plug another one of my favorite holiday items from Trader Joe's. I just ate 3 with an ice cold glass of milk and ahhhh, my anger is subsiding.