The Randomness of Grocery Stores

It's become almost a hobby over the past ten years or so to check out different grocery stores. It started when we moved to Stickville. After the first month, I dragged the kids to Roanoke, and we found a nice Kroger with a decent deli. I was so thrilled to see real deli products--I swooned so hard at the Boar's Head meats that the deli guy thought I was joking. While visiting Pennsylvania, we discovered Wegman's. (My) Aunt Barbara had a dozen or so recipe magazines from Wegman's, which I devoured. On one of our trips, we even stopped at Wegman's and bought dinner food before we made it to Barb's house. When Holly went to school in Fairfax, we found a kitschy little local Walmart that was our favorite for awhile. Although Giant was right around the corner from school, that was always our last choice, I know we weren't there more than three times in four years. During her final year, we ditched Walmart and did most of her shopping at Wegman's. Some of the food was fancier, but for the most part, the prices were comparable. We also visited Trader Joe's--two of them, on the same night, but neither one of those impressed. Other unremarkable stores included a couple of Harris-Teeters ($$$) and a few random ethnic grocers right here in Roanoke. And we dicovered the marvels of H-Mart in Fairfax. With it's incredible array of produce, expansive and exotic fish and meat sections, any Korean food you could ever want, and ready to go meals, it became a favorite stop--for Trevor. Whenever he came up, we included a trip to H-Mart, and when he didn't come up, he would provide a shopping list, and Holly and I would shop for him. When he first went to VCU, one of our first stops was an Asian food market, which to his dismay, didn't even come close to meeting his expectations. True story: One of the attractions to working in Northern Virginia for Trevor was that he could shop at H-Mart. It is also true that on the day he and I went apartment hunting in Manassas, our first stop was H-Mart, where we grabbed to go food. We ate that in the car while in the parking lot of the apartment complex he chose, sitting in front of the apartment he signed the lease for. Anytime we go anywhere, it's no surprise when a grocery store visit is part of the deal. One of our recent visits with Trevor included a stop at Lidl (a first for me and Robert) and a visit to a new Oh! Market. And other visits have included stops at, of course, Wegman's. We were in Henrico last week, and I'm not sure why a plain old Kroger was our stop, but it was. There was nothing here we needed to buy, and the bizarreness of it struck me as just one of our usual odd-but-now-normal stops: - 2 bags of Hershey's Chocolate (assorted Reese's candies on clearance, one for my work, one for Holly) - 3 cans of pickled beets - Twizzler Bites (for Holly's car ride) - Panko crumbs (for Holly) - Kroger sauce (for Holly--what even was this, tomato sauce maybe?) - 4 Almond Joy 5 packs (more clearance candy, Robert chose this) - toilet paper (Robert--who never misses a chance to stock up) (Documenting this, because it will no doubt be one of those silly things we laugh and reminisce about for years to come.)