CARLTON FLETCHER: The horrors of a trip to the grocery store

Let me tell you how it will be. There’s one for you, 19 for me. ‘Cause I’m the taxman.

— The Beatles

I say this aloud today, a week later, and I still can’t believe it.

“$8.99 a pound …”

It blows my mind … “$8.99 a pound …”

This bitter revelation came to me last Saturday when Tara recruited me to go to the grocery store with her. Worried about my blood pressure, she usually does such shopping alone. But on this rare Saturday, both of us finished our “light work” day early, so we decided to grab some lunch, then go grocery shopping.

The fact that the lunch made me feel like throwing up should have served as a harbinger. But, no, we went ahead to the grocery store.

I knew this was going to be an eye-opening experience when, shortly after we walked into the grocery (as we used to call it in Ocilla), Tara held up a small, roundish cut of turkey meat that was “on special.” How much do you think, she asked.

Now the last time I shopped for groceries was several years ago, back when I lived a pretty sad and lonely existence. Of course, being a regular guy who never learned to cook anything more complicated than a baloney sandwich (two slices of baloney between two slices of bread, 12 seconds in the microwave), my cart was typically filled with stuff like baloney, bread, Nutter Butter Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies, frozen TV dinners and a couple of cans of soup.

I looked at the piece of turkey Tara held up and, thinking I’d be clever and throw out an outlandish guess, I said, “Twenty-two bucks,” and grinned an I-know-that’s-outrageous grin. Tara grinned back.

“Forty-eight dollars,” she said, and I figured she was having me on. But then I looked at the piece of turkey she’d put back in the cooler and it was indeed $48. I knew right then it was going to be a long afternoon.

We walked past the store’s “bargains” and started our quest to find enough food to sustain us for the next week or so without having to scrounge under the seats of the car to find loose change.

It was only a short while into our quest that Tara pointed out a sign in the meat counter: “Ground beef: $8.99 a pound.”

I was stunned beyond words. I know it’s been a while since I did any serious grocery shopping, but the last time I picked up ground beef it was 99 cents a pound. Noticing my stunned reaction, Tara started picking up prime cuts of meat. There were roasts that went for $148 and a package of two steaks that was $120.

I was quiet the rest of our shopping experience, rallying only when I saw that you could get two free 12-packs of Coke products when you bought two. (Of course, the mark-up on the 12-packs you paid for was enough that Coke doesn’t have to worry about its profit margins, but at least I was delighted to see a semi-bargain.)

Needless to say, my joy at having a little free time dissipated like the air from a busted balloon. By the time we worked our way through the store, I was so downcast I felt that getting out of there with the shirts still on our backs was a blessing.

Then I started thinking about a certain politician who promised us he was going to take care of those nasty high prices “on the first day.” I thought of his proclamations that he (alone, mind you) had “beaten inflation” and was “bringing those high prices down where they should be.” And while I’m accustomed to these kinds of lies from this – and pretty much every other politician who makes a public statement – seeing the aforementioned high-level politician’s lies laid bare before me was a real downer.

So Tara and I got in the car, our adventure a bust. It took a while for me to work my way out of the funk the trip had wrought … I kept thinking “$8.99 a pound.”

I’d almost put the shock of the trip behind me when Tara said, “We need gas in the car …”

Email Carlton Fletcher at [email protected].