While Trying To Think Of Other "Eternal Questions",...

I came up with the one(or is it just kind of one) about why hot dogs and hot dog buns aren't sold in the same(or compatible) quantities. I chose not to list that one as a comment/reply to my "Eternal Questions!" post here, cuz I don't think it's an especially good one. But stuff like this has been happening to me/us a LOT lately.

"It all started" a few months ago, when I was at Aldis. On this particular trip, my funds were especially limited. So, I put most of the groceries on the belt, but held some stuff back(in my cart). I had the cashier total what I'd put on the belt, but even that(without the other stuff in my cart) went over the amount that I had on me that day.

So I had her take enough stuff off my order to get my total justunder my fund limit. Among the stuff I took back was 2-3 bags of tortilla chips. When I got home and started unpacking the groceries to put them away, there they were: the 2-3 jars of salsa I'd put in the cart(and purchased) to "go with" the tortilla chips!

Naturally, I found myself wishing that I'd bought 1 or 2 bags of chips and 1 jar of salsa, instead of only the salsa. Or even only the chips, since that's slightly more "useful" by itself than the salsa is. But, of course, when you're over your limit at the supermarket, you're usually not thinking in such "logical" terms, you're just looking for "extra" or "discretionary/non-essential" stuff that you can take off your order but which'll also total enough to get you back under your limit.

So, I wasn't really upset with or mad at myself, and I knew the salsa would keep, especially since I wouldn't be breaking the seal on the jars anytime soon. I just didn't know that I'd started anything; that this wouldn't be "the end of it".

Not that I'm superstitious or anything like that, I'm not(I'm a Red Sox fan, so I can't afford to be, lol). But things like this "tortilla imbalance" _have_ continued to happen - with other grocery items - since this "event", and - so far, at least - the superstitious axiom of "things come in threes" also fits. The "tortilla imbalance" was #1.

One of our other regular purchases at Aldi's is bagels. Naturally, we also buy cream cheese. But we usually buy 1 box of cream cheese for every bag of(5) bagles we get, and we get both(the cream cheese and the bagels) at Aldis. So, we're _usually_ able to keep these in very good, very close balance.

Until recently. Now, we often have bagels in the house but not "sufficient" cream cheese for them, or we've got "extra" cream cheese but no bagels. Yes, Katrina's a cook, but we rarely use cream cheese for anything other than bagels. This, I guess, has been #2.

#3 happened rather innocently. A few Aldis trips ago, I bought some corn chips(similar to Fritos) in addition to our/my "usual" purchase of tortilla chips(similar to Tostitos). "Naturally", I also grabbed a carton of sour cream to "go with" the corn chips.

As with the bagels and cream cheese, this corn chips and sour cream purchase _seemed_ balanced. But, for whatever reason, it hasn't been. We've continued buying both since that initial purchase(the Aldi's trip I blogged about in an earlier entry; what would you expect to pay for this?), but we often get "unbalanced" here, just as with the bagels and cream cheese.

So, as much as I'm NOT a superstitious person, I'm really hoping that things really DO "come in threes". But only cuz I DON'T want there to be a FOURTH example of "grocery imbalance" anytime soon! ;)