Covert Food Ops

I suck at grocery shopping. Seriously. I love The Price is Right, but I know that if I were ever on stage there competing for a lovely dining room set, a nice vacuum, or a NEW CAR, I'd fail miserably.

I believe it's mostly just because I don't enjoy wandering through the aisles comparing prices. For me, grocery shopping should be quick -- in and out in 10 minutes with people splitting up with their own specific food mission. This is hard when you're in the store by yourself with a long list of things to get.

My dearest wife is not like this, which is one of the reasons I always try to weasel my way out of grocery shopping with her. This is not my saying I don't appreciate how thorough Amy is when she grocery shops. She's amazing with the prices. She's almost like Rainman with her grasp of food prices between grocery stores.

"Yeah, ground turkey is only $1.64/lb at the Food Lion...we're definitely going there. Definitely. Not Giant, nope."

But sometimes I still have to go do the grocery shopping on my own. And one of those "sometimes" was today during my lunch hour.

I stood in the produce section perusing the list of groceries needed sent to me by the wife. My eyes glazed over as I looked through the various bagged salads, vegetables, and regular apples vs. organic apples. Baby Greens style bagged salad? Italian style? American style -- does that mean it's deep-friend and covered in chocolate?

Anyway, I try to make grocery shopping interesting if I'm on my own. The store I go to usually helps out by playing great music over the intercom system. Today, as I was selecting Golden Delicious apples, I was singing along with the Hall & Oates classic "I Can't Go For That."

As I selected fruit cups, it was "You've Lost That Loving Feeling."

Then I noticed a woman near me scanning some of the shelved items into a large Palm Pilot-looking device. She wasn't wearing any grocery store apparel, she just looked like your average middle-aged mom-type with a scanner.

I got excited because I thought I had located a secret grocery store rival price scanner! I'd only heard of them up until now. These are the people who work for one chain, but sneak into another to scan their prices and compare until kicked out by the store. Wal-Mart and Target do this to each other all the time.

Wanting to know more, I sauntered over covertly so as to not blow her cover. Although, honestly, she wasn't doing a great job of scanning covertly herself.

"Hey - do you work for another store?" I asked while pretending to look at some puddings.

"What?" She looked at me incredulously.

I scooted closer, but pretended to look very closely at the back of a box of granola bars. "I said, do you work for another store? Are you scanning this store's prices to compare?"

She looked embarrassed. "No, I'm not."

Rrrrright, I thought, thinking she was afraid to admit it because she thought I worked for the enemy.

"I don't work for this store, I just want to know," I reassured her. "I've heard of those folks who go store to store to scan the competition's prices. Are you doing that?"

"No. I'm not scanning anything," she said, breaking eye contact with me to lean down, pick up another product, and scan it.

What, you're doing it for your own home research? I was confounded, but didn't want to harass her anymore, thinking she was afraid I'd blow her cover.

So I moved on, and shimmied through the dairy section to "Respect." But it bothered me. I couldn't pick out the right type of cheese and shimmy with total concentration because I kept thinking of the covert scanning lady. What was that woman doing with the scanner? She must be working for another chain.

I had to go back and learn more. Was she was at risk of being kicked out for sneaking in to get their prices? I owed to my blogging public and to my being a journalist to go back and ask the hard-hitting questions. It was my duty as a reporter to pester her until she gave me the truth.

I rolled my cart back to the same aisle with a purpose. She was still there, just now scanning canned goods. I pretended to be very confused over whether I wanted Wheat Thins or Triscuits.

"So are you just doing this for your own research?" I asked.

"What? Oh no, I work for a company," she answered cryptically.

The intrigue increases. "Do you work for another grocery store chain?"

"No."

No more pretending to look at snacks. "Will they kick you out if they find you here? I mean, does this store know you're in here scanning their stuff?"

"They know I'm here. I do this in a number of stores around here," she said, finally stopping to look at this pest who would not leave her alone.

My interest slightly deflated knowing we didn't have to be all covert ops anymore. "Oh, that's cool. I just always hear about those workers who sneak into each other's stores to scan prices."

"Why, are you looking for a part-time job?" she asked with a smile.

"Nah. Maybe if it was all secretive and risky, you know, getting chased out into the parking lot by an angry manager."

She just laughed at me and I headed off to the checkout line.

On the way out, I jumped onto the back of the cart and rode into the parking lot at top speed.