Yes, I am in love with my grocery store.
See, being military, I've gotten used to commissaries that bear very little similarity to their civilian counterparts. While Albertson's and Safeway have been adding Starbucks to their locations so their shoppers can remain happily caffeinated, we military spouses have contented ourselves with thick, dark, overbrewed coffee (just your style, Art!) left in those pump-style vacuum carafes. Granted, our coffee is free, but I don't think anyone under the age of 50 actually drinks the stuff.
For much of my career as a Navy wife, I have clipped coupons. But I know better than to clip coupons for some new product that looks interesting unless I'm willing to buy it at Walmart or Target because the coupon will expire long before the commissary starts selling it. If we're lucky, a new product will hit our shelves about six months after it is available at your local grocery store.
(By the way, I saved $12.45 in coupons yesterday. I am extremely proud of that!)
Our commissary has also been sorely lacking simply in STUFF. There just isn't a huge selection of items because the commissary where I do most of my shopping was so very tiny. Cereal and ramen soup are about the only two products we get a lot of options on.
But all of that changed this past Sunday, when I took advantage of my fellow military wives' religious devotion and made my twice-monthly trip to the commissary. Our commissary and Navy Exchange (the military department store) complex has been undergoing a major remodel for probably a year now. The Exchange was finally finished in November, I believe it was, doubling the size of the store and making it a lot easier to shop in. The commissary started the remodel in late summer of last year, and at first I was told it would be finished by Thanksgiving.
At Thanksgiving, they started saying it would be done by Christmas. By Christmas it had stretched out to February. In early March, there was a sign posted that the commissary would be closed an extra day during the week (did I mention in my rant that the commissary is closed every Monday??) in mid-March to allow for the re-set of all the products into their appropriate place in the commissary.
So I was all excited when I made my mid-month trip in March, only to find it still wasn't finished, and everything was thrown into the store willy-nilly.
It's somewhat frustrating when Pampers are on one aisle shoved amongst the dog food and the Huggies are seven aisles over in the coffee section.
But finally, finally the wait is over, and it was definitely worth it!!!
When you walk into the commissary, it gleams with newness and cleanliness. Not that the old commissary was dirty; it was just well-used. The produce section is open and well-lit, and is flanked by a real deli section offering not only cut meat but also sushi made on premises! The freezer section at the right of the commissary is hugely expanded, and instead of the reach-in bins that I really don't like (I always freeze my arms off when I have to dive head-first into one of those bins), we have almost exclusively tall freezers with shelves.
In the main part of the commissary, there are so many new products that I nearly forgot I was in a commissary!
And best of all......... Now I can get Luzianne iced tea bags in my commissary!!
If you're using another brand of tea to make your iced tea, another brand that starts with L and rhymes with Ipton, you are doing yourself a major disservice. That brand makes crappy tea. End of story. Luzianne, on the other hand, is meant to be brewed into iced tea, and boy, is it good! The three years I have lived here I have had to have Michele send me Luzianne tea from Florida or wherever it is that she happens to be living so that I can make proper iced tea. Now it's available in my very own commissary!!!
So now I am in love with my new commissary. About the only thing I don't like is that the milk is now in the far right corner of the store, and since I buy four to five gallons of milk at one trip, I need a huge area reserved in my cart for the jugs. With the milk being in that far corner, I have to grab my produce first, then the meat, then the milk before I do the main part of the commissary. That means I end up doubling back, and I hate doing that. But it's just something I'll have to get used to doing.
The smallest things, like the remodel of my commissary, amuse me.
Simple pleasures for simple minds, perhaps??