Friday, May 1, 2009

F2: Bulk Limits

Welcome again to Friday's Feast. Today I'll be telling a story about my experience with a shopping cart. If you don't know what Friday's Feast is all about, please read the Friday's Feast page for a more detailed explanation. If you want to join in on the feast, be sure to leave a comment and include the URL to your post so I and others can know of your contribution.


When I was a bachelor I did not have a car. Because of this I carried all of my groceries from the store to my apartment. Whenever I went shopping in the grocery store I used to have what I called my "bulk limit"— which was the point where carrying the groceries would be too much to handle if I exceeded it. Typically I would say to myself: "oh… reached my bulk limit"— then stopped shopping and proceeded to the checkout counter.

I bought a shopping cart so that I wouldn't be so tired carrying the groceries home. The first time I had my cart I hung the shopping cart on the front of the grocery cart and proceeded to do my grocery shopping. When I started reaching my usual bulk limit, I kept telling myself "I have enough room…" and continued shopping.

By the time I decided to go to the checkout counter I realized that I may have picked out too many groceries. Fortunately, one of the managers assisted in packing the groceries into my shopping cart and did an excellent job. They packed the shopping cart in layers using paper bags as a wall and built it up inside the cart. Once it was finished I had a neatly packed cart which filled the cart to the top with groceries.

When I carried my groceries I used to give a gauge such as a dollar a pound to justify the heaviness of the groceries. I'm sure I needed a new gauge for when I carted this load home. Maneuvering the cart was pretty easy overall. Most of the sidewalks did not have curbs at the end of them— but rather had a handicap slope which allowed me to roll the card onto the street. But there were some curbs which did not have those handicap slopes and I found out just how heavy the cart really was.

By the time I got to my apartment I was pretty tired— but not as tired as I would be when I finally got my groceries home. At the time I lived on the third floor of a three story walk-up. WALK-UP… do you know what that means? That means that there is NOT an elevator. That means that you have to walk up four flights of stairs to get to the top. It really meant that it took me longer to get the cart up the stairs than it did to walk the cart home from the store. I really meant that I had to lift the cart up every single stair and worried about pulling my back out after each flight. It really meant that I was never going to be ignoring my bulk limit again.

4 comments:

Sarah Lulu said...

I laughed at your story. Easy to see what you were telling ...

I have a very tall hungry son, my youngest that still lives with me and I often think of just how heavy the groceries will be when carrying them up our stairs, if he's not at home.

Deb said...

oh i do the same thing even now. i go to the store daily and use a basket rather than a cart. once the basket becomes too heavy to just drape over the crook of my arm, i head to the checkout.

Debbie said...

I can't imagine. I buy so many groceries for this family of six. If I had to walk them up, we would NOT eat.

Dawn Parsons Smith said...

I do the same thing Deb does...end up with a broken arm from a basket that I completely over bulked!

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