I don't use the flyer. I pretty much buy what I buy, and don't swap brands much, or decide that this week is pot roast week because it's on sale. Food groceries is where I allow myself to have no budget. Which only works as long as I'm not eating out a lot.

I do, however, clip coupons from labels, use the coupons sent specifically to me, and check the "savings" total on each bill and give myself a mental high five the higher it is each time.

I wonder if using the flyer would make me hate it less. I pretty intensely despise getting it in the mail. Part of my paper thing.

I love a list! But they aren't very useful at TJ's or at the farmer's markets. I do use them at Whole Foods though or I'd be lost. I prefer to shop by myself because Bob doesn't really like to do it anyway and also it makes me way more efficient. I get kind of annoyed at people who shop in couples or with their kids (although I totally understand why they'd have to). They go way too slowly!

Cow jumping or what to do when mom and dad say "no" to the horse.

Dear Co-Workers,

When you have no idea what *I* do, and you choose to have a conversation with our Web host regarding what *I* do, and you don't include me in that conversation even though I offered several times to be in on it, why are you surprised when you tell me "what they need me to do" and I reply with "that's not actually possible; maybe it would help if I were in on the conversation, as I offered"?

No love,

The monkey who actually does the work that you think you're "sorting out"

By which, of course, I mean you tattoo "coffee" and "lentils" and such like on your torso.

WHY HAVEN'T I DONE THIS SOONER???

Hee. But I do realize that theoretically I could just use the list from the bottom up, but somehow it doesn't work.

Also, I don't understand how my supermarket arranges their produce, and as a result, I haven't bought broccoli in months.

I have a list, sometimes only mental (for the usual suspects) and am pretty methodical. I can get through Target and TJ's in under 2 hours when I dawdle, and probably an hour of that is sitting in traffic.

There are swathes of stores I just don't know anything about. Frozen food, for instance. I just go for ice cream, juice, and frozen fruit. There are actual meals in there? It was months before I realised that most of the TJs meals you were talking about were *there*. Still haven't navigated it in the main supermarket, but it would be a great distraction from ordering in to have freezer pizza around.

Shopping with a list - what a concept.

I basically look in the fridge and the cupboard to see what we need, and then I go to TJs and then also Safeway to get the missing items. While in the store I'll specifically spend a fair amount of time in the produce aisle getting fruit that's ripe and on sale and I know the kids will eat. And then I also buy specific items for meals I already have planned for the week.

Since I do the cooking its frustrating for me when JZ shops because she buys things which don't "go together" (in my mind at least).

Because I've got an unadventurous teenage eater, a picky preschooler, a vegetarian and my omnivorous self, there's only a smallish overlap of meals I can make in the Venn diagram. When Emmett's here I buy a lot more meat (mostly hamburger). When he's not, I buy seitan and tofu and make stir fry.

RE: Reverse culture shock. Jon and I had a hard time with how quiet everything seemed here when we got back from India. And how neat and clean and movie set like everything looked. Felt like being in The Truman Show or something.

I learned "poftim" from BBC's Top Gear! It means, like, "here, have a thing," right?

I've needed this word!

God, I want my snippy TWC tech back. This chick is useless. Do they have macro buttons for inanities? If she expresses sympathy one more time, or calls us a team, I will need to take a walk.

I'd bet folding money that's some new Customer Service philosophy they're required to follow now.

Since I do the cooking its frustrating for me when JZ shops because she buys things which don't "go together" (in my mind at least).

Jon does this sort of. It's more like he decides he's going to say, buy in bulk one day. Then he cooks for 2 days to freeze stuff, but it's just the 2 of us and no way were we ever going to eat 15 dozen eggs or 10 pounds of meat, even with freezing, before we are sick of it or it goes bad.

I use the supermarket flyers to wrap up worm food. Because none of my local papers will deliver to me except the one that annoys me so much I don't want to give them money. But look at the ads and decide what to get based on them, hardly ever. That would mean going to the store in the same week that I decide what I'm buying, for one thing. And I can't deal with coupons - they expire and they are too specific and even if they would apply to my purchases I never remember to bring them with me (or if I do bring them with me, I forget about them by the time I have made it through the aisles and it's time to check out).

It's a damn good thing I have boxes of produce appear on my porch as if by magic once a month.