We spend our fall and winter months in a major Snowbird destination community in southern Arizona. During Snowbird season, the stores, restaurants, festivals, community events, etc. are absolutely packed with elderly people still living the good life. Or at least, still living
One of our local supermarket chains is the Fry’s Supermarket. In central part of the town in Yuma, AZ, there are also Albertson’s Food Stores, Food City, several Walmarts, Del Sol Markets, and some smaller locally-owned stores. However, out here is where most of the winter visitors hang, in The Foothills, which is about 12 miles outside of Yuma close to the rugged Chocolate Mountains. It has more open desert with stellar views of the mountains and Sonoran Desert scenery.
To cater to thrifty-minded seniors, Fry’s offers a Senior Discount Day where a qualified senior will get 10% off their entire bill, on top of the other in-store sale items and weekly discounts. This discount day is on the first Wednesday of every month. And what a day it is! I took my long list and went to this event last week. I was prepared, though, having gone to one the previous year during the height of the swinging Snowbird season.
It was a full-on combat shopping experience. I got there what I thought was early – about 8:30 AM – to try to beat the worst crowds. Boy! Was I wrong. I had trouble even finding a grocery cart and I snapped this photo of the check-out lines as I entered the store.
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Obviously, these people had arrived far earlier than I got there – probably just after they finished their donuts and coffee at the local Donut Corral which opens at 4 AM. I could see I would be in for a long wait when I gathered up the groceries on my list and would be ready to leave.
I had worn my best World of Warcraft T-shirt with the symbol marking me as a player who specializes in Damage characters in the game. In playing WOW, your character can take on different roles in a raid group for killing monsters. Some people are healers and others are in charge of doing damage to the monsters and defending the rest of the group. I figured I might need to do some defense.
I’m not sure it helped scare off the eager senior shoppers. Probably, not many of them play World of Warcraft and they weren’t familiar, nor intimidated by, my status as a high-damage skilled player. I saw one old man riding on one of those courtesy ride-on grocery carts shoving other people’s carts out of his way using his cane. Another old man in boots and a big hat was wearing a gun on his hip – Arizona’s own Sheriff Joe Arpaio style. Yikes! I hadn’t thought a person would need a gun but this is Arizona where people are free to carry heat most places – including bars, restaurants, and churches. Why don’t I feel safer when I see these well-armed seniors in the store with me?
I was afraid to try to take a photo of this guy but he looks like the same guy I saw in Fry’s a couple years earlier whose photo I did manage to surreptitiously get.
I’m pretty sure it was the same guy. My Ceramics professor saw this photo when I posted it on my Facebook page several years ago and said that guy went to his church and dressed the same and always wore his gun.
It took me over 2 hours to gather up my groceries as each aisle was packed and blocked by people and their carts. Some of the food on my list was already gone and I saw empty shelves. For example, we eat a lot of tofu. Apparently, so do many other seniors. The tofu shelf was completely empty.
I did score a couple bags of Paqui Tortilla Chips that were on the after-Halloween discount table. These are reputed to be the spiciest chips a human can buy, so I just had to try them. For some reason, they are only available around here at Halloween – probably because one of the flavors is called Haunted Ghost Pepper.
We took the Grilled Habanero bag to a party last night and they were, indeed, quite hot, however it is the Haunted Ghost Pepper ones that people claim are inedible. As my son David said, who got a bag for Halloween and eats treacherously spicy food routinely, “you CAN only eat just ONE of these.” I will save the Ghost Pepper chips for another special occasion.
I stopped at the Customer Service desk to ask if they would honor or match competitor’s coupons from other local stores. Here was the customer service line.
It wasn’t possible to get a shot of the whole line from where I was standing, but I was several people behind the guy in the blue shirt. It was worth waiting for, as I got them to agree to honor the local area Albertson’s store coupon where if you spent $150.00 you could get an up to 25 lb. turkey for free. Yes!
Here is a shot of my cart near the end of my shopping as I was about to leave the produce area and move to a check-out line.
I had to walk all across the back of the store looking down each aisle in order to find the end of a check-out line so I could get in one. I went to the far end of the store and found a line that looked no worse than any of the others, but was easier to maneuver my way down to the end.
The people behind me took this photo of me in line with my cart.
I had a jovial time talking with the other people in line while we waited for our turns to check out. On the whole, people were good-natured and tolerant and feeling like it was worth it to saves some extra money off their grocery bill.
When I got done checking out and excitedly waiting for the final tab to see how much I saved, I was very happy!
I saved over $150.00 and got a free Thanksgiving turkey, besides! Woo-hoo!
Here I am in the parking lot ready to load my loot into my car.
My register tape was 53 inches long! My total was $522.67 and when all my discounts were subtracted, I paid $372.04. We won’t need anything other than fresh stuff for a month, or so! That’s an incredible deal plus a priceless experience.
I was exhausted by the time I got my car loaded up, got back home, and got everything unloaded and put away. I had stood in the check-out line for over 40 minutes, and spent a total of 3 1/2 hours of my day on this mission.
I look at participating in things like this as part of sampling the culture of getting old and living around a lot of other older people. Somehow, I always think of other old people as being much older than I am. But I also notice that I am also getting older, even though I don’t feel like I’m ‘old.’ Except physically. Everything hurts a lot more these days and things just stop working the same as before for no explicable reason. This is annoying, but a person needs to just suck it up and fight it – otherwise, you might as well just give up and passively wait for the end to come.
Like my avatars in the game of World of Warcraft, I’m a fighter until the end.
As a complete side note, please consider giving my latest book, A Spring in the Desert, to someone special this Christmas. It is a feel-good story with a lot of loving sexy parts. They’ll love it! It is available on Amazon in soft-cover and on Kindle, from Barnes & Noble in soft-cover and on Nook, and Powell’s Books in Oregon and from your favorite local book store.
Thank you. 🙂
carpyharpy 