Sketcheroni [Adventure]

[Adventure 245]

After a long day, we stopped at the grocery store on the way home to pick up a few ingredients needed for the next night's dinner. We ended up with a shopping cart full of things, because suddenly we all remembered  - or discovered - things we needed ... or "needed." 

One request we had from home was for pepperoni. Somehow, after scouring the entire store for pepperoni, including going where directed, we only found one basket with a brand we've never seen before. I checked the ingredients, pondered whether I wanted to spend the money on a more expensive brand, and eventually went back and grabbed a pack out of the basket. 

Lines at the only two open registers and me being completely exhausted and in pain, we decided on the self-checkout. One of our favorite employees was working self-checkout, which was a good thing considering what transpired next. 

First, a product would ring up and she had to manually enter it. No problem.

Then I moved something in the bagging area and she had to come over to convince the register I didn't remove something from the bagging area.

Then I scanned an item and put it in the bag and the register was convinced I'd put something I hadn't scanned into the bagging area and she had to fix that. 

And then... and then came the pepperoni. I went to scan the barcode and it wasn't there. Nor were the ingredients. Just the front label. We called her over. She inspected it and exclaimed that she'd never seen this brand before. She took it to the customer service desk, where it was inspected and given a price. She brought it back and said they said $3 but she said $2.99 so she was ringing it up for $2.99.  Into the bag it went.

One last item to scan, the register let us know the bagging area was full and instructed us to remove the bags. After loading the bags into the cart, we scanned the last item and placed it in the bagging area. The register protested. We just couldn't catch a break.

Nearly twenty minutes after beginning check-out, we were finally on our way to our van. 

Upon returning to the grocery store the next day - because, of course, I forgot several things - I checked the basket of packages of pepperoni. Every single package - the same brand as the one we purchased - had a list of ingredients and a barcode. Apparently all except the "sketcheroni" we took home.