Back to Cereal

Tonight we went on a family outing to Ralph's. The purpose of the trip was to utilize a coupon for a free half gallon of Breyer's ice cream when we bought a Sara Lee pound cake for $2.50. There's no passing that deal up.

As is my habit now, we also made a special trip to the day old rack. The results were disappointing, as there were only two items on the rack (and last time I went, there were none). Either someone more desperate than I has beaten me to the punch lately, or perhaps the store has adopted a new philosophy with its new renovations: if people aren't buying it, don't make as much of it.

There is another rack right next to the day old rack, though, that I don't know how else to describe other than the "Destroyed or Old But Still Good Rack." I love that rack. Tonight there were several boxes of cereal on one of the top shelves. Some of the boxes were mutilated and held together only with brown packing tape, but the inner packaging was still intact, and the Cheerios (General Mills Brand) were only $1.50 a piece. So Michelle picked up three boxes.

I was feeling pretty triumphant about our purchases, as Michelle and I remarked back and forth about we can't get ourselves to spend more than $2.00 on a box of cereal these days.

But then I saw an associate from the office I work in buying groceries too. He didn't seem to see me. I am mildly embarrassed now to admit that I quickly ducked out the way to avoid detection. It wasn't so much that I didn't want him to see me pushing the bulky red racing car shopping cart, or the fact that somehow we'd ended up with close to 10 boxes of cereal in that cart (which we blissfully justify by classifying these purchases as "food storage" on the monthly budget).

Nope, for whatever reason I just couldn't bear to have him see me proudly carting around boxes of Cheerios sloppily held together by packing tape. So I averted eye contact, pretended I needed to look at a few things down another aisle, and then waited until he was safely making his way out of the store before looking up and resuming my confident posture.

I am ashamed. But at least in my shame I still picked up three boxes of name brand Cheerios for $1.50