I’ve learned the geography of the local grocery stores reasonably well, which I consider impressive because (a) I am directionally-impaired, (b) I regularly go to three different places with three different layouts, and (c) I am not a veteran shopper when it comes to anything outside the canned food section. However, some of the things that Clancy wants me to get while I’m out are a bit tougher to nail down. I don’t even know what category they fall into some of the time. Does evaporated milk, which Clancy puts in her coffee, go under coffee accessories? With spices? With sweeteners? With regular milk? That sort of thing.

This is made more difficult when I can’t see very well. Last night when I went shopping, I was wearing my contacts. My contacts are hit-and-miss, but have been missing a lot more recently than they’ve been hitting. For some reason, my right eye in particular stays blurry. Not prescription-out-of-date blurry, but a whole new level. If I put my left-eye contact in my right eye, I can see better than I can with my actual right-eye contact. I think it has to do with the fact that they are torics and they’re not adjusting appropriately. When they adjust is when they hit and when they don’t adjust they miss.

Anyway, being able to only see out of one eye when exploring the hinterlands of the market is quite challenging. I have to look twice as close at everything just to be able to read it. Text doesn’t jump out at you when you have to squint to read it. I am thinking that next time I go shopping, I will just wear my glasses.

One thing that is always helpful when cruising the supermarket is to have a really good confused expression. I’ve got this down pat. I never know when to give up and bother an aisleperson to ask to locate something. I don’t know how busy they are. But if you walk around with a good confused expression for a little while, they’ll find you! Incidentally, eyes made uncomfortable with contacts and the squinting that bad contacts require really helps you out in this regard. You can have the confused expression even when it’s not your intent.

I got help with the evaporated milk, which was next to the flour (who doesn’t like a nice helping of flour in their coffee?). The final thing was whole strawberries. I searched high and low for any sign bearing the words fruit, berries, strawberries, or even other frozen goods and found nothing. Where do strawberries go? Or, for that matter, where does fruit go? I first looked in the vegetable section and had no luck. Then I looked in the frozen meals section and found only frozen meals. The strawberries were, oddly enough, with the potatoes. No idea why. Why not with the vegetables? Yeah, yeah, I know that strawberries are not vegetables. But you know what else they aren’t? Potatoes.