At the beginning of the pandemic we were only allowed to send one person to the supermarket for the family. Remember that? And only so many people were allowed in the store at one time! Oh, and don’t forget to one in one direction in the aisle. And all during this time you had to have a mask on. And many people wore gloves – not me. I was instructed that it was safer and cleaner to just wash your hands.

So I went – always being careful, keeping my distance and trying to obey the rules. Standing outside awaiting my turn to shop was perhaps the worst part of that experience. Now look at us….the store is full and (cough, cough) people seem to have forgotten about any hygiene lessons we may have learned. Are you licking your fingers?

When the pandemic was over, we kept the practice of our making a list and then I would go off to shop. Most of the time, we buy similar items each week.

I love bacon!! But we tend to buy turkey bacon, and I never see it on sale. I can get that pound of bacon, I mean the 750 g of bacon on sale. I can get it for as low as $3.49, but more likely $5.99. Fruit is all over the place in price. According to CBC frozen produce is always a good buy and has not increased to the same degree as the fresh produce.

And of course now, almost every time I go to the store I am checking myself out – the scarcity of employees, other than security guards who seem plenty, is really at a low it seems. I’m struck by the feeling of “get the cart, put your food in, check out yourself and leave”. There’s so little personal contact with employees – and happy employees.

So prices are up, service is down.

And then there’s shrinkflation….