If there is an Aldi’s grocery store in your area, and you haven’t been yet, please stop reading this and GO! 

Welcome back!  Wasn’t that awesome!?

For those of you that aren’t lucky enough to have an Aldi’s in your area, allow me to explain the bizarreness and fabulousness that is this 8th wonder of the world.  Ever wondered what it would be like to sell groceries at your garage sale?  Well, welcome to Aldi’s. 

First, you can’t just GET a cart.  No sir-ree!  That is reserved for those FANCY stores.  At Aldi’s, even though the ghetto is a good 20 miles away, you have to rent a cart for $.25.  Yes.  For real.

Saldy, since they don’t give you a handbook upon entering for your cherry voyage, I didn’t understand this concept until my son, on our 3rd trip there, figured it out. 
“Mom!  You put a quarter in here, and then the cart comes out.  And when we’re done, you put the cart back and it spits out your quarter.” 
FANTASTIC!

Aside from the carts on rent, the prices at Aldi’s are ridiculous.  They are easily 50% less than a normal grocery store.  They sometimes have brand names but more often than not, it’s some random Aldi’s brand.  Which really doesn’t matter because Ben and I can’t taste the difference in the cereal, chips, milk, yogurt, etc. 

All the food is in a very garage sale like setting.   Actually “setting” is too serious a term for their displays.  It’s more:
“Frank, I gots a new box of Cocoa Rice.” 
“Great Bob, just ah, open it up dere.  The folks can just get it out of dat box.  No need to actually take ‘er out of da big box.  Dat might make our prices go up.”

One of the other rockin’ things about Aldi’s is not only do they NOT bag for you, they don’t even HAVE bags.  You either have to bring your own (so environmentally friendly) or buy one for a nickel.   Ben and I have had many a fit of laughter while we tried to juggle our groceries sans cart or bag.  

When checking out they literally throw all your stuff in an empty cart which you take over to the side to bag up yourself.  You know you have hit Aldi’s royalty if the checker 1) makes eye contact with you and 2) tells you your total.  Otherwise you just have to look and figure it out yourself.  Oh and please don’t even think about using a credit card.  They only take cash and debit.

See?  Cheap prices + laughing + good food = happy people.

So last week over lunch, I stopped tp pick up some staples.   As I was walking in, a woman who was on her way to return her cart said, “Do you need a cart?” 

“Sure.  Thank you!” I said as I tried to hand her a quarter.

“No.  Keep it.”  she said.

“Thanks again!” I said as I happily walked into the store with a little spring in my step, plotting what awesome things I would do with my new twenty five cent fortune.

Once I had all my goodies, I got in line behind a nice woman, who even though she was struggling with her lot of food and her three year old, made room for me and found me one of those separator thingys.  

While I was putting my food on the conveyor belt, I overheard the guy behind me saying to an older gentlemen, “That’s all you have?  By all means, go ahead.” and ushered him forward.  Since such a beautiful lass as myself couldn’t possibly be without a man, this older guy thought we were together and reached over me to put his one box of cornflakes in front of my stuff.    Of course I didn’t say anything because this was a grocery store clearly full of love and magic and I wasn’t about to break that spell. 

Right as I was walking my cart, full of paid groceries, over to the side to pack them all up in my one sad little plastic bag, a woman came in with a ton of paper bags for people to have and use.   Again… FANTASTIC!

While I was about to put my cart away, after feeling the generosity of my fellow Aldi’s shoppers, I began to feel guilty for just taking my $.25 pot of gold.  Until what to my wondrous eyes should appear but a woman walking up towards the carts!

“Do you need a cart?”  I asked eagerly.

“Oh.  Yes.  Thank you!”  she said as she tried to hand me a quarter.

“No.  Keep it.”  I said.  “Some woman gave me this cart to use and now I’m giving it to you.  Maybe when you are done you’ll give it to someone else.  We’ll see how long we can keep this going.”

She laughed and said “Thank you!  I’ll do that…”  And off she walked into the glory that is Aldi’s.

It may not be much, but these strangers and their random acts of kindness in a discount grocery store, threw some sun on my otherwise very rainy, non eventful Wednesday.