Shopping Hell

I'm coming to the conclusion that  those of us in the age bracket that advertisers hate should shop from home and ignore the stores.  A few days ago, I asked the butcher at our supermarket if they had either a hambone or hamhocks, and they did not.  Recommended salt pork which I had to chop up and brown to render the fat, adding an extra step to the recipe, a greasy stove, greasy skillet and finding a can to put the grease in.  Grrrr.   Make it if you dare:
Garbure: a delicious Basque Peasant Soup

Today, I went to Ocean State Job Lot to get some baked beans that I had forgotten yesterday.  Looked at the Coldwater Creek (sob) clothes, but they had no mirror or changing rooms.  Didn't want to risk it.  Some of the knit items were torn or frayed.    Big crowd of shoppers, mostly old.

Found a rack of stuff from Land's End and Eddie Bauer.  Figurered out right away that the clothes had the wrong sizes on them, and this is why they were on sale at the Job Lot and woe be to anyone who bought without trying on.

Found the baked beans (yay!) and approached the check out line.   Two old lady shoppers with some (but not a lot of) Coldwater Creek sweaters in one line.  A woman with a whole cart of snowshoes in the other line. Hmmm.  Chose the old ladies, and now with a gent with 2 items.  Bad mistake.  The showshoe purchaser was gone and a now had formed at that checkout counter.   Old ladies chatted, yada yada, and took friggin' forever.  One, two, three shoppers passed thru the line I bypassed.  The gentlemen in front of me, it turned out, did not really speak English and did not understand the question about donating to children's hospital.   He left without his change, creating more chaos.  By then I was so pissed and didn't donate anything which I had done yesterday anyway.

On to Kohl's because my aerobic shoes are so worn out they are getting holes in the toe.   Kohl's had mostly running shoes, mostly expensive, mostly wide widths, frequently white.  White sneakers make your feet look like gunboats, and they also scream TOURIST,  and one does not want to look touristy in one's own turf.  Left without shoes, but grabbed some athletic socks, because mine have myseriously disappeared.  The washer likes to snack on them perhaps.

Even worse check out line hell.  Lots of people with lots of stuff and not one, but TWO meat ball deals, one in each line. Neither line moved.   Stood there just about forever, and then after much paging a clerk finally appeared, not to open a new line but to assist the clerk in the line I was in. Not going to get out of this store for twenty minutes!   I put the socks down and walked out.  Way too much aggro.

I need to cut 16,000 words from my novel, and this is causing a major time suck and aggravation is my constant companion.  Shopping is hell.    

The soup that was made without ham bone or ham hocks is called Garbure, and it's from the Basque ares of Spain.  Spanish food rocks!  See recipe above.  Hope you can find some ham hocks.