Living without a car can be a bit of a challenge, even for someone as immobile as I am. This is the grocery basket I use:

It's not really as big as I would like. More than once I've ended up buying more than can fit, and had to carry a couple of plastic bags in one hand while towing that thing with the other. There's a larger kind of basket with larger wheels which I'd rather have, but no one around here sells them. Ah, well.

Two 12-paks of soda can fit in that thing, but that's really more weight than it's designed to carry, especially when you're wheeling it half a mile on the kind of route I take to the store. Over the course of three years I've had to repair the basket a couple of times. (With cable ties. Anything that can't be repaired with duct tape can be repaired with cable ties. And if it can't be repaired with cable ties either, then it isn't worth fixing and you probably shouldn't have bought it in the first place.)

So now I'm finally out of soda. Last fall, just for the hell of it, I tried having groceries delivered, and because of a screwup, partly mine but mostly theirs, I ended up with 14 12-paks of soda cans. I'm down to about 20 cans left in the refrigerator, at last, and hauling soda home myself in that basket is frustrating. So I just put in another order with Safeway for delivery.

They had a delivery appointment open for tomorrow mid-day, which is up to RACS levels of service. Of course, after they deliver I may not think so. Last time all I ordered was non-perishable, non-breakable packaged goods. This time I got some refrigerated stuff and some frozen stuff. And 2 dozen eggs. I fear the worst, but it had to be tried.

The delivery charge was only $10, which wasn't too bad for $180 worth of groceries. (It's a flat rate.) I decided to use this to stock up on non-perishables for my pantry. I also ordered some stuff that Fred's doesn't carry.

So they're due to deliver between 11AM and 3PM tomorrow. Last time I tried to tip the lady, but she wouldn't take it. I'm ready to tip again tomorrow, and I wonder if I'll be refused again?

UPDATE: Of course, as soon as I finished the order I remembered things I meant to include. Next time I do this (in another few months) I'm going to spend a couple of days accumulating a shopping list before I go online.

UPDATE: And they just delivered, and the eggs aren't broken, and the frozen food was frozen. The delivery truck has a chill compartment where they keep the freezer and refrigerator food.

The french bread I ordered came with sesame seeds, and the tortillas turned out to be burrito sized, not taco sized. But neither of those is fatal. It'll be interesting to see how a burrito-sized quesadilla works out on my griddle. The tortilla fits, just barely, but it may not be cooked evenly.

Oh, and she refused the tip, just like the last one did.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Daily Life at 08:48 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 535 words, total size 3 kb.