The most common announcement heard in the grocery store aside from our selling suggestions is, “clean up aisle…” It’s also the announcement courtesy clerks dread as they head towards the backroom to fetch the mop bucket. Now we’ve seen all kinds of messy spills such as wine, cooking oil (which is such a pain), beer, eggs, but in this particular scenario you can only ask one question… why?

Customer: There’s a spill on aisle 7.

Me: Thank you. We’ll get right on it ma’am.

WE NEED A WET CLEAN UP ON AISLE 7!

Customer comes back…

Customer: It’s also on aisle 8, 9, 10 and 11.

Me: What the…

Customer: Looks like a trail…

WE NEED A WET CLEAN UP ON AISLE 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11!

I lock off my checkstand to make sure the courtesy clerks are attending the matter.

What is that? I ask Johnny J.

Johnny J: I don’t know. Vinegar maybe?

Me: Vinegar doesn’t smell like that plus its not yellow looking.

Johnny J bends down to smell it…

Me: Whoa! Johnny! Just mop it!

Johnny J: I can’t pin it on anything but it sure smells familiar.

I leave Johnny J and head back to the checkouts.

Customer: Hey! Guess what? I found your leak.

She points to an older gentleman who completely oblivious that he has a giant wet stain in front of his pants and he’s headed towards the checkout lanes.

Johnny J! Bring the mop to the checkstands!

Oatmeal-On-The-Run!
Instant oatmeal is a filling and comforting breakfast.  Put the oatmeal with your kids’ favorite toppings in small, repurposed jars (jam and condiment jars are great for re-use) on the weekend, then all they have to do is grab and go the next morning with a little hot water and a stir.

Ingredients (per jar)
½ cup instant oatmeal
¼ cup any of the following to taste: raisins, dried chopped apples, crushed walnuts or pecans, blueberries, strawberries, etc.
¼ tsp. cinnamon
¼ tsp. sugar, brown or white

You will need ½ cup boiling/very hot water to add to the jar.  Stir and add more water depending on the consistency desired.  Warning: jar will be *hot* so wrap in paper towels to protect hands, or combine and stir in jar and then pour into a bowl to eat.

Serves 1.

Eggs-A-Go-Go!
Kelly, one of our resident bargainistas, came up with this fantastic make-ahead idea.

Ingredients
8 eggs
¼ cup diced onion
½ cup chopped spinach
½ cup shredded cheddar cheese
Cooking spray

Coat a standard 6 cup muffin tin evenly with non-stick cooking spray or olive oil and set aside.  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Beat eggs until fluffy.  Add in veggies and cheese and mix until combined.  Spoon into the muffin tin evenly.  Bake at 350 degrees for about 22 minutes, or until eggs are fluffy and rise above the top of the muffin tin.  Let cool completely, and store overnight in the fridge.  Warm up for 30 seconds in the microwave for a quick and very easy breakfast.  (And you get protein and veggies!)  These last about a week in the fridge.

Serves 6.

I’m sure anyone who’s worked in retail all wanted to do something spontaneous like this…

(Aug. 10) — JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater has become an instant Internet folk hero after arguing with a passenger, making a four-letter-word-laced intercom announcement and then fleeing down the aircraft’s inflatable emergency slide at New York’s JFK airport — with a beer in hand, snatched from the beverage cart.

Slater, 38, activated the plane’s chute Monday, moments after the passenger who tried to remove luggage from an overhead bin too early upon landing bonked him on the head with a bag and then swore at him, according to news reports. Slater swore back at the passenger over the plane’s loudspeaker and then said, “That’s it. I’ve had it.” He grabbed a beer, his own luggage and slid down onto the tarmac.

“I wish we could all quit our jobs like that,” passenger Phil Catelinet, who was on Slater’s flight from Pittsburgh, told the New York Daily News. “He seemed kind of happy about it. He was like, ‘I just quit my job.’”

At least seven Facebook fan pages have been created in Slater’s name, one with an image that appears to be from a Jet Blue safety demo showing a man careening down escape chute. “I LOVE YOU! YOU ARE MY HERO!” one fan wrote in all capital letters. “Come to San Francisco and I will buy you a drink,” wrote another. “Steven … you are a hero to many!”

But a Daily News columnist perhaps captures the public reaction to Slater’s antics best, with his headline: “Take This Job and Shove It! JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater does what we all dream of doing.” The New York Post headline blares: “FREAKIN’ FLIER!”

An AOL Jobs piece suggests that Slater’s outburst is a symbol of worker stress in a rocky economy.

Despite his new-found fame, Slater is facing charges of criminal mischief, reckless endangerment and trespassing. Slater was arraigned in a Queens courtroom today, where a judge set his bail at $2,500, according to The Associated Press. Slater was released on bail Tuesday night. He was arrested Monday at his New York City home, where neighbors described Slater as grinning as police led him into a squad car in handcuffs.

“When they hit that emergency chute, it drops down quickly within seconds,” an unidentified law enforcement official told The New York Times. “If someone was on the ground and it came down without warning, someone could be injured or killed.”

JetBlue said it is investigating, but “at no time was the security or safety of our customers or crew members at risk.” The Times also reports that it took JetBlue more than 20 minutes to notify Port Authority police of what happened, in violation of policy. The lag gave Slater enough time to reach his car and drive home from the airport.

The airline suspended Slater pending the results of its investigation.

With strangers inquiring about how they can donate to a legal defense fund, the administrator of another Facebook page with more than 3,600 fans (and counting) wrote: “As of this moment there is no official donation response in effect yet however if such a fund is erected it will be made public on here. Thanks for the support!”

On his MySpace profile, Slater earlier listed his mood as “pissy” but otherwise comes across as being happy with his job. “My airline affiliation allows me amazing travel privileges, and I love to max it out with trips around the world, sometimes on a moment’s notice! Let’s go!” his profile reads.

Neighbors also described him as a diligent worker and content person, but said his mother has been seriously ill and that he could be stressed out about her condition. “Steven’s mother is dying,” Judy Rochelle, whose son Kenny lives with Slater, told the Daily News. “She has lung cancer. She’s had two chemos and the prognosis is not good. They were on their way out to California this weekend to settle her affairs.”

Another neighbor who lives near Slater’s mother’s home in a Los Angeles suburb told the Times that Slater is a “very conscientious, responsible individual.”

“It could be the pressure of his mother’s illness, because that’s not the type of behavior or conduct that Steve exhibits,” Ron Franz told the Times.

Is he really a retail hero?

From: AOL.com

I will never loiter outside another grocery store again…

(MEMPHIS 8/17/2010) The people were hanging out front again. There are always folks loitering around the In and Out Grocery in North Memphis. There are plenty of no loitering signs around, clerks constantly come out of the store to tell folks to leave, but they don’t. So on Monday night, store employee Majdi Morshed took his .45 caliber handgun out with him to try and scare the young crowd away. Something went wrong, and witnesses say Morshed fired one shot and hit 16 year old Demetrius Moore in the leg. Moore was taken to the hospital and will be ok.

“There would have to be a reason for him to shoot him,” said Morshed’s cousin, Ahmed Halim. He says the crowds of young people in front of the store causes huge problems for him and other employees and customers. “They are always a headache,” Halim said. “They give me a hard time. I keep calling the police, but once they leave, they come back again.”

The In and Out was a busy place during the noon hour. There were a few who didn’t want to talk about what happened. Those that did say they understood why Morshed got upset. As a man who called himself “Rockin Jeff” let us see where he was stabbed last Memorial Day, he talked about the incident. “It gets rough here. The school kids were fighting out front here just before the shooting.” Cab Driver William Ross came to the store just after the shooting. “This man is running a business,” Ross said. “If someone does wrong, and then comes back and brags about it, you need to expect what happened to happen.”

From: WREG.com

DO THIS!!

Buy 3  5pks of Mac & Cheese= $2.99ea–check for coupons on the side for a FREE box of capri suns

Buy 3 Capri Sun Roaring Waters 10pks

Buy 2 Quaker Granola bar 10pks OR Rice Krispie Treat 8pks OR Poptart 8pks (you can mix n match too)

You will pay only $8.97 for all 8 items when you give them the coupons on the side of the mac n cheese boxes.  That’s because when you buy the 3 capri suns, you get the 2 boxes of snack items free (even though the capri suns were free with the mac n cheese!  I did it 3 times today, worked great!)

TIP:  If someone tore all the cpns off the boxes and you don’t get any (meanies!) then check the end caps for more mac n cheese displays.

TIP: You can do this up to 4 times in one order….you could buy 12 5pks of Mac n Cheese, 12 Capri Sun roaring waters, and 8 boxes of quaker, etc.

It’s very important to know the difference between expiration dates, sell by dates, and best by dates. Here’s some information to help you untangle the difference between each type of date.

Best if used by and use-by date: With emphasis on the “best” qualifier in this term, it means the product should retain maximum freshness, flavor and texture if used by this date. It is not a purchase-by or safety date. Beyond this date, the product begins to deteriorate, although it may still be edible.

Sell-by or pull-by date: This date is used by manufacturers to tell grocers when to remove their product from the shelves, but there is generally still some leeway for home usage. For example, milk often has a sell-by date, but the milk will usually still be good for at least a week beyond that date if properly refrigerated. 

Guaranteed fresh: This date is often used for perishable baked goods. Beyond this date, freshness is no longer guaranteed although it may still be edible.

Pack date: This is the date the item was packed, most-used on canned and boxed goods. It is usually in the form of an encrypted code not easy to decipher. It may be coded by month (M), day (D), and year (Y), such as YYMMDD or MMDDYY. Or it may be coded using Julian (JJJ) numbers, where January 1 would be 001 and December 31 would be 365. In even more convoluted coding, letters A through M (omitting the letter I) are often assigned to the months, with A being January and M being December, plus a numeric day, either preceded or followed by the numeric year. 

Expiration date: If you haven’t used the product by this date, toss it out. Other dating terms are used as a basic guideline, but this one means what it says. 

Information gathered from this article on About.com.

Resources: to get more information on expiration dates, including a comprehensive list of products and their freshness time frame, check out this wiki article on expiration dates.  We were really impressed by it. 

Stay fresh!

Dukes v. Walmart is the largest gender discrimination lawsuit in history, alleging that women who worked at Walmart were systematically given less pay and less chance at promotion due to gender. We’ve spoken a lot about it in the past on this blog.

According to the 9th Circuit:

Plaintiffs contend that Wal-Mart’s strong, centralized structure fosters or facilitates gender stereotyping and discrimination, that the policies and practices underlying this discriminatory treatment are consistent throughout Wal-Mart stores, and that this discrimination is common to all women who work or have worked in Wal-Mart stores.

Walmart even knew they were wide open for such a lawsuit but did nothing to change their practices. Now Walmart is asking the Supreme Court to say that its one million plus female employees can’t make this claim as a class action.

So maybe if Walmart had only discriminated against half a million women it wouldn’t be appealing?

From what we can tell, the reason that Walmart is asking the Supreme Court to take on this case is that they do not want to be exposed to the damages might result from such a large class, up to and possible more than 1 million women. Walmart would like to have each woman bring suit individually, rather than trying to defend themselves against the allegation that there was an overall culture of discrimination.

Dukes v. Walmart is the perfect example of why we have class action lawsuits in this country: no lawyer would be able to take any one of these cases individually because the damages would be too small to devote the time needed to prove discrimination.

Walmart would like a legal system that only works for the big guys.