Food Shopping - an adventure

Yesterday, I looked in my fridge, and decided that I would need to spend some money. We were out of some key items, like bread and milk. That necessitates a trip to TWO stores, because I am weird like that. Bread is fresh-baked at Mana, milk is at Costco because they have the best price on organic milk.

We headed out - first stop Mana Foods. O, My beloved Mana, with it's narrow aisles and amazing people watching opportunities. Millionaires and celebrities next to the scary, smelly guy who pays for his groceries with a backpack full of change. A varying percentage of the shoppers are in bathing suits, with sandy feet and salty skin. Babies are in slings, kids run wild, there are hoses in the produce section, and it is always just bordering on chaos. I love chaos. Mana Foods is the place where, when we first moved to Maui, I came around the corner in the produce aisle and found a man adjusting his sarong. He was holding it stretched out behind him, and was about to wrap it around his waist. He had no pants on. Completely naked except for his flipflops. I just turned the carriage around and decided we would not be getting produce that day after all. Which is a shame, because Mana Foods can have some pretty amazing produce. That is the only time I have ever seen a completely naked person in Mana, but there have been plenty of other sightings of bizarre and "only in Maui" behavior. Ah Mana. The cross section of humanity wanders your aisles with me.

After our Mana adventures, we headed over to Costco.

I hate Costco. Parking is damn near impossible (it never used to be this hard !) and the store is always crowded. And people are RUDE. These days, it is always filled with tourists who have just gotten off an airplane and are on their way to a condo on the beach. They are buying huge bottles of booze, and far more food then they could ever consume during their 1 week stay. What are they thinking ??? Hardly any of the food is local, and everything is bulky and heavy and just UNNECESSARY. Except the milk, of course. Honestly, no one should need to shop there unless they have 10 kids, or they are throwing a dinner party of epic proportions. Costco represents everything that is wrong with America, and I just hate it. I may never go again, actually, because I hate it so much. I don't need most of the stuff they sell there, and I certainly don't need the massive quantities. It's just vulgar and anonymous and sterile and gross and WITHOUT A SOUL. Unlike Mana, a store that practically has a pulse it's so real. Even the stupid shopping carts are the oversized, energy-guzzling SUVs of carts. Ick Ick Ick.

What it all comes down to is this: If I would just get real (really REALLY real) and embrace the whle self-sufficient lifestyle I am so enamored with in theory, I would pay attention to my garden and bake my own damn bread. And then, the only thing I would really need to buy in a store is Dr. Bronner's soap. From Mana, of course. I just read all about it on Not Martha's link to Metafilter.
http://ask.metafilter.com/101862/Uses-for-Dr-Bronner-soap