menu plan Monday, Shopping

In which Nichole may or may not have stolen a salad

This is the third or fourth or fifth week that I’ve planned to have a rotisserie chicken and a salad for dinner one night, and after many hours of ferrying the children hither and yon, today I finally took my free-chicken-and-a-family-salad coupon over to Whole Foods.

The chicken part was pretty straightforward. I picked up a rotisserie chicken, and I put it in the cart. Done and done. The salad, though, I wasn’t sure about. Whole Foods has a vast array of salads and salad bars, and I wasn’t entirely sure what the coupon meant when it said “a free family salad.” So I asked one of the cute millennial people on staff.

“Hi,” I said. “When this coupon says ‘family salad,’ what exactly does it mean?”

“One of those in the cooler under the ‘Good Stuff to Eat’ sign,” the Cute Millennial Gelato Girl said, gesturing in the general direction of the coolers. She didn’t say “Good Stuff to Eat,” exactly, because that isn’t what the sign said. But when I was there I remembered what she said and I found it.

Pixabay didn’t give me any results when I asked it for a free stock photo of a cute millennial, but it did give me this when I asked for a picture of gelato. // photo by Daria Yakovleva
So those directions narrowed it down from the 16,870 salads available at Whole Foods to about 3,457 salads. And I still wasn’t sure exactly which one the coupon was talking about. But I figured the Cute Millennial Gelato Girl wouldn’t steer me wrong, so I grabbed a pasta salad in a larger box instead of a pasta salad in a smaller box — because the “family salad” oughta be the bigger one, right? — and I went to the checkout.

“Are these vegan brownies good?” I asked the Cute Millennial Checkout Girl.

“They are so good,” said the Cute Millennial Vegan Checkout Girl. “That’ll be $10.79.”

I did have a box of 99-cent macaroni and cheese and, suddenly, a vegan brownie, so I wasn’t surprised that the whole order wasn’t free. But I was surprised that a vegan brownie and a 99-cent box of macaroni and cheese came to $10.79.

“Didn’t the coupon cover the chicken and the salad?” I asked.

“Oh no, not that salad,” she said. “It has to be a green salad. You can go ahead and check out and then just grab one of the green salads.”

This is what Pixabay offers up when you ask it for “vegan.” I’m going to go ahead and assume she doesn’t know much about brownies, either. // photo by Croisy.
A green salad. OK. I finished checking out with my free chicken, my 99-cent macaroni and cheese and my vegan brownie, and I went back to the Good Stuff to Eat cooler. Armed with the new knowledge the Cute Millennial Vegan Checkout Girl had imparted unto me, I discovered that I now had only 145 salads from which to choose.

So I chose one, and I went to the express line.

“Hello,” I said to the Cute Millennial Checkout Guy. “I’ve already checked out, but I got the wrong salad for my coupon and I want to make sure I have the right salad because I don’t want to accidentally steal a salad.”

“Oh no,” he said, “not that salad. The one you want is about the same size, but it’s not round.”

Downtrodden but not yet defeated, I went back to the Good Things to Eat cooler. I was now faced with only two options: A green salad in a square container, and a green salad in a rectangular container.

And I — I took the one in the square plastic, and I don’t know if it made all the difference or any difference because I did not stop to ask.

But there are two things I do know:

  • I need the Cute Millennials of Whole Foods to understand that I am an old dotard who needs very specific instructions. Like maybe you could just hand me the right salad? Thanks.
  • That vegan brownie was not so good. I’m sorry to say it, Cute Millennial Vegan Checkout Girl, but I think you’ve forgotten what a brownie should taste like.

    • This was the first result Pixabay offered when I asked for ‘cash register.’ I’m beginning to think Ashton Kutcher is running Pixabay. // photo by annca

    Anywho, here’s what we’re having for dinner this week:

    Monday: Rotisserie chicken and a salad
    This’ll be some combination of cheese, bread, ham and a saute pan.

    Tuesday: Cracker Barrel chicken
    This is a ridiculously easy recipe. It’s meant to be a copycat recipe for Cracker Barrel’s “grilled” chicken tenders, which are delicious and you can’t tell me different.

    Wednesday: Korean BBQ tacos
    I found a Korean BBQ slow cooker sauce at Aldi’s a few weeks ago. It sounded promising.

    Thursday: BLAs
    That’s a Bacon Lettuce and Avocado sandwich, because tomatoes are gross.

    Friday: Grandma’s choice
    Rockford and I will be embarking on our annual Weekend of 1,000 Films — in which we try to watch as many of the Best Picture nominees as we can squeeze in — so Grandma is in charge of dinner.

    Hungry for more? Check out the Menu Plan Monday linkup at OrgJunkie.