What is it like at the supermarket ?

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That's a video of me in a supermarket on a very good day

I usually wear ear defenders but is not possible when wearing helmet




[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6xXCiUd3xI[/youtube]



Is it stress full for you in a supermarket ?

I find it very stressful indeed.

Online shopping is best thing ever imo

lol@online grocery shopping

Just go around 12-1 a.m. at night, or 6-7 in the morning when almost nobody is in the store. That's what I do.

I hate busy supermarkets, generally because of other people shuffling slowly, blocking aisles, getting in everyone elses way. Just all the dumb sh*t that people do.

If I have to shop for grocerys I perfer the farmer's market since its mostly outside with bigger isles so I don't feel as closed in on and generally more fun with entertainment and stuff, be sure to get there early though. The internet is my best friend though.

I HATE the supermarket. I always leave looking like a mouse in an electric maze. I'm a picky shopper-- I like to compare prices and nutrition labels and look for American made products and the products made closest to where I'm at. It is hard to concentrate with all the noise, worrying about annoying other shoppers, not to mention trying to keep a handle on my bratty 3-year-old.

ALL clothing, toys, books, and household items (furniture and stuff) I either ask other people to buy or get from yard sales, thrift stores, and/or the side of the road. If I can't find them there, I order them online.

I pay 30 to 50 percent more to get tools and hardware from the local hardware store because Lowes and Home Depot make me want to scream. Besides that, the folks at the local hardware store NEVER say things like, "You mean a hacksaw, sweetheart?" when I ask them where I can find replacement blades for my bowsaw. I NEVER get the tits-in-the-shop routine from them. They also sell things like lumber that is true to dimension-- a 1x2 that is actually 1 inch thick and 2 inches wide. If I don't know what something is called but can describe what it looks like or what it does, they will help me find it and tell me the name. Half the time, the people at Lowes don't even know what I'm talking about (sometimes even when I do know the technical terms).

I buy milk, eggs, milk products, and some beef and pork from a local dairy. It's 10 to 20 percent more expensive, but it's fresher (there is a visible difference), sometimes I get damaged product for free or at cost, and I don't have to go to the damn supermarket every week. I do a lot of the supermarket shopping I have to do at Save-A-Lot, even though I hate their labor practices, because it's a tiny little store with six wide aisles, thirty parking spaces, and usually not more than 15 or 20 people in the store at a time.

In season, I buy fruit and vegetables from the local farm markets and peoples' front yard produce stands. If I'm careful, I can go from May to October without having to go to the supermarket.

When I do have to go, lately, I've been trying to hit WalMart very late at night, after the kids and DH are in bed. I get there around midnight and leave around 3 AM. I can go alone and there are not a lot of other shoppers. Mostly just me and the night stockers. They do not like me being there-- they mostly think I'm just getting in the way-- but at least I don't leave shaking and cross-eyed feeling like all my hair is standing on end.

The other annoyance is impulse shopping. I do pretty good for the first half of the trip-- then I start having a hard time deciding whether I really need something or not, whether I'm just grabbing stuff or if it really is something we're almost out of that I forgot to put on the list.

I try to buy in huge bulk-- my last trip included 50 cans of soup, 60 lbs of flour, three bottles of laundry detergent, 144 servings of chocolate milk mix, 10 boxes of Cheerios, a case of toilet paper, 100 pounds of cat litter, 50 pounds of cat food, 25 pounds of dog food, 30 pounds of rice, 25 pounds of sugar, 3 pounds of coffee, a pint of vanillla, and a 30 pound brisket that I turned into six roasts and ten pints of stew meat, four sets of headlights, 5 gallons of washer fluid, wipers for both cars-- and go only once every couple of months through the off season. I spend $300 to $400 at a trip-- but $400 every two months is really not any different from $100 every week or two.

I have a lot of foods that I like to buy in bulk from the local hippie co-op. When I go, I spend two or three hundred dollars-- mostly on things like 20 pounds of hulled barley, 20 pounds of plain couscous, 20 pounds of quinoa-- and then I don't have to go back for six months. I hate the co-op most of all, because I have to drive through the city, go in the daytime, take the kids, and frankly I don't know about back in the '60's, but in 2013, progressive hippie liberals seem to be some of the foulest, nastiest, most judgmental people on Earth.
I'm learning to grocery shop online, too.

Supermarkets are far too bright and colorful for me. Plus you have hear all the chattering and screaming kids and tills bleeping and trucks being wheeled around.

I actually love supermarkets! They fascinate me and can calm me down when I'm feeling stressed.

When I was living on my own in Boston, I would sometimes wake up in the middle of the night and go down to Shaw's or some other supermarket just to walk down the aisles in a constant state of awe. That's the best time since the store is mostly empty (in fact, it's my personal opinion that everything is better at night).

Something about the vast bigness of it all just captivates me. The sheer volume of useless junk, cheesy packaging and empty calories that make up so much of the "wealth" or first world nations never ceases to amaze me. And I really mean that -- going to the grocery store is always an experience.

I think the repetition of the colorful packaging and the (usually) soft music coming in over the speakers are what calm me down when I'm feeling angry or depressed. Although in a way, grocery stores make me a different kind of depressed -- I look at the overabundance of food and junk just sitting there, and I feel frustrated that there are still hungry people out there in the world.

Despite that, it's a mostly humbling exercise. I wouldn't say that going to the supermarket is "exciting" or "fun," but rather interesting. Like I said, they fascinate me.

I don't mind the noise so much, but the smells and the unpredictable movements of people emerging from the ends of aisles and nearly crashing into you with their carts.

And when I take my son I have to use the self-checkout because the regular checkouts are very narrow and boxed in with candy displays which he won't keep his hands out of long enough for me to put the groceries on the belt.

I didn't find that very stressful. At least there weren't many other people all in your way (unless there might have been when you weren't videoing). I find supermarkets more stressful when everybody goes up one aisle at once, and you are trying to get past one another and wherever you stand you're in somebody's way and they're hovering behind you trying to get where you're standing and....ahh! Sometimes I feel like yelling, ''OHH f**k OFF AND STOP GETTING IN MY WAY!! !'', but I know I've just got to keep cool. It's the only thing I can do, otherwise I would just freak out and go on a rampage, pushing everybody over and beating people up who stare at me (not kill anyone, I am not a murderer).

I'm another aspie who doesn't fare well in stores, especially big ones. Before I knew what AS was, I used to feel guilty about it, thinking it was some sort of repressed misanthropic dark side of my character. Still, I developed techniques to deal with my antipathy toward shopping.

The first, which has already been mentioned, is to shop during off-hours, particularly the early morning. Also, I like to shop in the same stores routinely so I know where everything is at, and I can get my business done in a hurry. I've found that, barring holidays or heavy weather, the best mornings to shop are Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

I can't do it anymore, since I live over a hundred miles from anything besides Walmart, but Sam's used to be my store. In these stores it is possible to pick up at least a month's worth of stuff in one trip, thereby saving aggravation. It is also cheaper, at least on most things.

Another advantage of Sam's is that, while physically very large, I got to know where everything I needed was, and could get out in a hurry. I recall going to Sam's at about 8:40 pm wanting to do my month's shopping. Well,since they closed at nine, they weren't going to let me in on the grounds that I just didn't have enough time. As it turned out, I bought a month's worth of stuff and was in my truck driving away when they actually closed up.

Now, I've got a vegetable garden which not only saves me time in the supermarket, but money as well. The food is also of much higher quality; I know where it came from. I can't recommend a garden too highly.

The supermarket is the worst place I have to go to

- the faster I can get out of it the better
- if I can get out of it before the fluorescent lights have reduced me to a non-verbal jibbering wreck then I am lucky
- if I can get out of it before the rows of things DEMANDING that I look at them have managed to make me have so much vertigo I want to throw up, then its a good day

As far as I'm concerned, they are DESIGNED to f... you up, so you get disorientated and BUY MORE STUFF you never needed.