I don't know exactly when I learned about curbside pickup but I'm certain I didn't really understand how it worked until at least the summer of 2020, during the pandemic. Once I discovered it I found that I love it! It's so easy to just drive up and get your order.
Of course, like anything else, there are pros and cons to curbside pickup. A pro is that you don't end up with the impulse buys you might end up with if you did the shopping yourself. A con is that if you forget to include something you need on your order, you're not going to be in the store to see it and have that "aha" moment and end up getting what you need. Another con is that I've ended up with items I wouldn't have bought if I'd done the shopping myself. An example would be leafy greens. I believe it was collard greens. I ordered a leafy green and what I was sent home with looked like something that was one day away from needing to be thrown out - if that. Right now I have a sweet potato that came with a good chunk of one end of it that needs to be cut off because it's not good. And then there are the substitutions. Most are okay but some are like "how did you come up with that from what I ordered?"
But with all that said, the thing that really bothers me is the grocery bag situation. The place I get my groceries recently started offering to bag the groceries at the car, if you bring your own reuseable bags - which I do. The number of bags I have has dwindled some because they've been abused by sackers. I think I have 9 left, which usually is enough for my orders.
The problem is that these people seem to be trained to overstuff the bags for some reason. I take all my bags with me and get home to find four are stuffed so full that there is a risk the straps will tear when I lift it. The other five will be empty. I mean, what is the point in that? I've started telling people when they bring my groceries out to fill as many as possible. I forgot to tell the person that today and she left me with I believe three empty bags. Meanwhile, my bread was just thrown in the trunk without being put in a bag. Like, what's up with that?
Now, the thing is, if I hadn't checked that I was bringing my own bags and they had bagged them in the store, I would have my groceries divided into 75 different bags instead of the four they crammed them into at the car!
Maybe it's just me but I wish there was a happy medium here! Just saying!
