Going to the grocery store can often be a chore. Gathering a list. Driving to a crowded grocery store parking lot. Navigating packed aisles in a futile attempt to grab the items on your list as quickly as possible only to be stood up at the long checkout lines fretting over your response to the inevitable and somehow seemingly judgmental question, “paper or plastic?” behind the condemning glare of the clerk for having “forgotten” your reusable grocery bag. Earth hater.
Well, my friends, there is a better way! As with most things in this life, it begins with mental and physical preparation. You know what a trip to the grocery store can be like. You know that no matter how well planned your list is, you will forget something. Milk, butter, flour…it’s always something obvious. What’s more, despite a lifetime of experience that proves otherwise, you are almost always surprised by how long a trip to the grocery store can take.
The first step to peace of mind is to go grocery shopping knowing that something has been left off your list and that the trip will more take time than planned. So why not embrace it, look forward to it, make an outing of it? Nothing will help prepare you both mentally and physically better than choosing the right flip flops for the trip.
One cannot scurry about in a pair of rubber beach flips. One must stroll…
Wearing flip flops will force you to slow down. Being in flip flops at the local grocery store a week before Thanksgiving will make you feel like you’re on vacation in the midst of everyone else’s rushing about, pushing loaded carts with lists in hand and scowls on their faces. Not you. You’ll be in the same store with them yet feel miles away.
I suggest an all rubber flip flop such as one wears to the beach. Never mind that it’s late November, cold, dark and raining. It is precise because of the cold wet Fall weather that you need to be in beach flip flops. It will adjust your attitude and slow you down. One cannot scurry about in a pair of rubber beach flips. One must stroll… forcing the mind to slow down, the eyes to easily take in all the sites and the ears to roll along with the hum of humanity.
I suggest a pair of Olli’s, Hunter Originals, or even better yet, the earth friendly Freewaters Supreme. In them, you will glide through the grocery aisles feeling as weightless and carefree as the Dude himself floating high above LA. You’ll notice grocery items normally overlooked due to the typical frenetic sprint through the store. There’s an inspirational array of fruits and veggies, spices and mixes, breads and cereals likely never noticed before all thanks to a flip flop stroll down the aisles. It’s a whole other world right under your nose. All you need do to discover it is slip out of the hectic check-listed and time obsessed rat-race and slip into some flip flops.
Even standing in the checkout line is enjoyable in flip flops. Take time to visually explore the baskets of others and play a mental game of “what’s for dinner at their house?” this can be a great way to come up with new meal ideas.
They have seen it all from behind the counter atop the rubber comfort mat.
Be sure to take the opportunity to chat with the checkout clerk. More often than not they’re glad for real human conversation and meaningful interaction. All too often they are seen and treated as a sort of living kiosk, rather than another human being. Talk with them, you may learn much about life and the human condition. They have seen it all from behind the counter atop the rubber comfort mat.
As you stroll out of the grocery store with a cart half-full of what you came for and half-full of new discoveries, you’ll find yourself looking forward to getting home, unpacking your paper or plastic bags and discovering what you’ve forgotten so you can return for another grocery store get away stroll.
Just think of the things to be discovered! Do Life Right. Flip Flop Daily.
