Grocery shopping in the city: A marathon event

Now I know why New Yorkers are so skinny. Not only do they walk everywhere - two blocks to the pharmacy, two blocks to the park, oh, yeah, and five blocks to the grocery store.

After putting it off for about two weeks.. and bartering with my roommates for two pieces of bread, (yes, I paid them back) I decided I could put it off no longer. I opted to stop by Trader Joe's on the way home from a little shopping trip at Old Navy. So I already had one bag going into it. My first mistake.

While Trader Joe's is about five blocks from my apartment, it is so worth it - it's so cheap! So I picked up everything I needed. The first big difference from Ohio - no shopping carts. I used one of those cute little baskets. By the time I had gotten everything I needed, the basket's handles were bending, dangerously close to breaking and spilling my goods all over the too-small aisles.

Which brings me to the aisles. In New York, you physically run into people 20 to 30 times a day. It becomes so ordinary, you don't even say 'Excuse me' anymore. Plus, you probably have your iPod in anyway. So I'm lugging this basket around, which weighed about 40 pounds, and I'm literally dodging, ducking and squeezing through the hordes of people who also thought it would be a good idea to go grocery shopping at 6 p.m. on a Wednesday.

Then there's the line.

In Ohio, there are checkout lines as far as the eye can see. And those self-checkout stations, which are especially handy if you have to buy a particularly embarrassing item. In New York, or more specifically, in Trader Joe's, the line snaked its way around the entire store. It blocks the aisles for everyone else and basically clogs the already overcrowded store. And everyone like me, who overestimated their carrying ability, has been reduced to pushing their basket through the line with their foot.

The only thing good about this particular shopping trip was the price tag- $50 for two or three weeks worth of food.

But then you have to lug it all home.

Now, I'm normally not such a complainer. But in my defense, they really need to reorganize that store, maybe make it a little bigger and form some sort of line system that doesn't block every single aisle in the store. And I have a cold. So I'm particularly lovely - a cold, 50 pounds of groceries to carry and 300 people to dodge on my way to the door.

Walking home, I carried two 25 pound bags of groceries, my overstuffed purse and an Old Navy bag. I was sweating buckets and a small blister was beginning to form between my toes. I pretty much glared at anyone who a) got in my way or b) decided to hit on me. Really, do I look cute right now? I look like a sweaty pack mule.

Upon arriving at my apartment and collapsing on the floor, groceries and all, I saw that my forearms had already bruised, with broken blood vessels clearly visible. Geez, I need to get some tougher skin. Literally.

It's times like these I miss my car.

But maybe I'll get skinny. Stay tuned.