David Jenkins: Grocery pickup is a life-changing moment

There have been a few life-changing moments I have encountered in my lifetime. The first time I worked on a computer, the first time I watched golf on a high-definition television and the first time I tasted coffee ice cream all changed my life forever. I experienced another just this week when I used grocery pickup for the first time.

Grocery shopping for me is a never-ending potpourri of indecision, impulse and idiocy that seems to never end. I always have good intentions. I make a list and vow I will stick to it as I enter the grocery store. But entering the store is where things always go wrong.

Once in the store I am immediately overwhelmed. So many choices and so many things I never knew I needed until I saw them. I will check my list and wander aimlessly up and down the aisles looking for chicken stock, with no idea where it is.

As I look, I will put things in my cart that I don’t need like cupcakes and beef jerky and yogurt. I will feel up the fresh fruit, acting like I know exactly what I’m looking for but in reality I have no idea. Is it better to be firm, soft, green, red or purple? I have no idea but if you saw me in the store you’d think I did.

After spending way too much time in the store, I go to the checkout and realize I’ve spent double what I was planning. And when I get home it is even worse because I realize I only got half of what was on my list and I have to go back the next day.

But with grocery pickup, I don’t have any of those problems. The grocery gods have my list and I don’t have to search up and down the aisles for my items. And that keeps me from buying items I don’t need like yogurt that will sit in my refrigerator until it goes bad.

The grocery gods pick my fruit for me and better yet, when they don’t have what I am looking for, they will substitute it for the next closest thing. Not only does it save me time in the grocery store but it also saves me making multiple trips to get groceries. And I’m saving money.

Grocery pickup is a beautiful thing. Now if I can just find a writing god to write these columns for me, I’d have another life-changing moment.

David Jenkins is co-editor of the Standard Democrat.