Grocery shopping has become less of an adventure and more of a necessity as I have matured. In my younger days, I used to enjoy cooking, and a trip to the market was fun, but as time has passed and the notion of baking means only more meat around the mid-section, alas, the thrill is gone.

Now the aim at visiting the supermarket entails a race to see how fast I can get in and out with food I can prepare in less than 30 minutes.

I now scurry down the aisles loading up my arms with the items I need. A buggy requires more navigation, and if you get a cart with jacked up wheels, the whole shopping ordeal can turn into an elongated upper body workout.

I admit there have been times when I have briefly longed for the good old days when I spent time on the sugar and spice aisle, dreaming of the confections I could create. But the momentary lusting ends when I realize it will take more than a shopping cart workout to eradicate the damage of a homemade chocolate cake.

A couple of years ago, I was in hopes my grocery store excursions would subside once my youngest daughter came of age and acquired a driver’s license, but that dream was dashed when her school schedule and after-school activities did not allow much time for helping mom out with grocery shopping chores.

Therefore, the drudgery of grocery shopping has remained mine, and I find it the worst during the holidays.

I will spend enormous amounts of time maneuvering down the aisles adding foods and sweets that have become a family tradition, and by the time I am done, I am exhausted and worn out from shopping for everything on my extra-long grocery list.

One year during the busy holiday season, as I was unloading what seemed like an endless amount of food from my shopping cart, it occurred to me how many times groceries travel in and out of the buggy.

The thought played out like a George Carlin monologue.

You put the groceries in the buggy as you are shopping, and you take the groceries out of the buggy to checkout.

The groceries are then bagged and put back in the buggy only to be rolled out to your vehicle and removed from the buggy once again.

I smiled to myself wondering if the comedian had ever thought about the life of groceries.

Clearly, grocery shopping is a necessary inconvenience for me, but in all of my disdain for a task others may find enjoyable, I cannot help leaving the Vicksburg Kroger store without a smile on my face. All of its employees are friendly and helpful, and the bag boys are the bomb.

Not only do they sort out my groceries in a cold/dry goods order, they ALL exhibit cheerful dispositions that are contagious, and before I roll my cart to the car, I realize grocery shopping wasn’t so bad.