So clearly, I’m under some stress right now and I realize that I have not been dealing with it well AT ALL…insomnia, stress eating, avoidance, lots of tears. Yesterday, I used this technique where I write down some positive steps to help me and put it somewhere that I can see it. Here was my list:
- Cook and eat better.
- Try to exercise.
- Go to bed earlier.
- No caffeine after 5 p.m.
Good start, right? I focused on the whole cook and eat better, and decided I wanted to get all gourmet and found a recipe for Lemon Rosemary Salmon and another for Roasted Green and White Asparagus. After work I hit the fancy downtown grocery store near my apartment to pick up all the necessities.
Let me interject that I love grocery stores, LOVE THEM, and I love fancy food and I love shopping for new ingredients and it sometimes amazes me how much money I can spend relative to the small amount of items I actually take home. So let’s just say I dropped a bit of coin on fish and asparagus and two kinds of berries and whipping cream (for dessert) and random other things, including two kitchen tools I needed to assist me with this meal. All of my stuff fit in one rather overstuffed paper bag.
Except you know what wasn’t in the bag when I got home and changed and checked my e-mail and finally got around to unpacking said bag? THE SALMON. There it was on my receipt, all $7.81 of it, but IT WAS STILL AT THE STORE.
This has become, like, a constant theme in my life. This is the second time that this particular grocery store has charged me for something that I didn’t have when I arrived at home, and I’ve dealt with the same issues with my local Target, including LESS THAN A WEEK AGO, when I had to go back to the store to recoup nearly $30 of merchandise and even after that I still didn’t realize that my mother’s birthday card was not there anyway.
I called the fancy grocery store and they were all, “Okay, come on back.” Well yeah, except that I was already in my comfy clothes and going back to this store involves a parking garage and an elevator and you can’t just run right back in. And while they have a delivery service, they didn’t have a driver there but they could drop off my salmon tomorrrow.
Do you know what was not on my little stress management list? Avoid totally freaking out when something goes wrong. I HAD A GODDAMN HISSY FIT ABOUT THIS STUPID SALMON.
When I did make it back to the store, two or three employees and fellow customers were all, “Oh, you left it here?”
Me: “NO, I did not leave it here, I was never GIVEN the salmon. The salmon was never in my posession, it’s not like I abandoned it like an unwanted pet, IT WAS KIDNAPPED! All I wanted was a nice dinner and you ruined it!”
Okay, those weren’t my exact words but that was the gist of it and yeahhhhh, I clearly overreacted about the whole situation. In the end I got the salmon and I cooked everything and it all tasted pretty good and I felt a little better.
But if you ever see someone in a grocery store parking lot, unpacking every single bag and comparing her items to what’s on the receipt, it’s probably me.
