Complication frustration

Gentle readers,

We live in a time complicated by an overwhelming number of options. I'll use yesterday as an example. I'll just say that I am not generally the shopper. However, circumstances had me at the grocery store yesterday...with my three year-old daughter...after we had climbed snowy mountains in a church parking lot...and had stopped at a quaint coffee house for a hot cocoa. The items we needed were simple enough: Milk, eggs, orange juice, bread, mac-n-cheese and fish sticks. Six items. Run of the mill items. Nothing exotic or complicated. Right? Wrong.

We walk in and head for the bread. I know what kind of bread we get...Peppridge Farm Carb Style Wheat Bread. I found it easily among the sea of breads in the bread department. Oh yes, there's a bread department. It's off the bakery wing. So, I also picked up some eggs...a dozen brown Grade A large eggs. We were off to the races. Daughter was being good, but having some trouble focusing and staying in her skin. I'll never again give her a chocolaty drink before shopping, even if I think I'll only be a few minutes.

Milk, this one I know, also. Generic skim with the latest "sell by" date. Sweet! I'll just swing by the OJ and we're almost done. Have you seen the OJ section lately? It's immense and complicated and immensely complicated. OJ used to be Tropicana or Generic. Now, there's fifteen brands and each has its own No Pulp, Low Pulp, Some Pulp, Lots of Pulp, Pulp-tastic, OJ with things added, like Calcium and Vitamins...OJ with things taken away like Low Acid, Low Sugar. My head was spinning. I centered myself, asked Daughter to stop spinning the cart around in a death spiral, grabbed generic Low Pulp and hoped for the best.

We had picked up the mac-n-cheese on our way down a previous aisle and only needed fish sticks. On our 5th lap around the frozen food section, Daughter began to hop. Out loud I said "You've been really good. I know you are jumping, literally, out of your skin, but as soon as I figure out where they are hiding the fish sticks, we can go home." A nice woman heard me and pointed me to the fish department. Yup, next to the fresh fish is a frozen case where they hide the Gorton's and Van Dekamp's. Now, the fresh chicken and such has no frozen case next to it...the frozen chicken fingers live in the frozen food section. What kind of logic is that?!

When I left the grocery store, 45 minutes later with my 6 items, I was exhausted.

Daily Random Musing Item: Why do they classify eggs as Grade A when I've never seen anyone selling Grade B eggs. Further, if there is no Grade B, what's with the Grade A classification? If there is a Grade B, what happens to those eggs?