Small surprises

"Aww, look at how CUTE this is!"

I cooed to Brandon at the 8-oz bottle of F&E fresh salad dressing. Adorable! And practical, once again, for smaller consumption. I was looking at the back to see if this tiny thing would feed 3-4 of us. It probably would. I was surprised I haven't noticed such cuteness before.

But then, I was in for more surprises.

As I moved on to pick up a bag of pre-cut romaine, Brandon pointed toward the end of the aisle. Having had my head stuck on accomplishing my grocery shopping, I followed his hands instead to the next section.

"Why are you pointing at the whole lettuce? I just got a bag."

He kept saying, "Look! Look!"

I finally looked up to find our friend Brenda chuckling behind her cart next to me.

Duh.

Our friend Brenda, a contributor at HmmFoodGood, fresh back from being out of town, was doing her shopping. She also hoped to find something for her newly adopted--as in this morning--shelter puppy.

"Wait, where are the big bottles?" Brenda picked up that cute little thing.

"I was wondering the same thing," a lady behind her said.

"They used to be the size of the iced-tea bottle, didn't they?" I asked.

"Yes," Brenda replied. THAT'S why I never noticed these bitty bottles before.

"I mean, who all can you feed with this little thing?" she added.

Once again, this little thing would be perfect for me, Brandon, and maybe one or two more guests who like lightly-dressed salad. One dinner, and nothing left to waste but a cute little plastic bottle. Apparently, this new tiny bottle presents problems for a slightly larger family. Or people who really like a lot of dressing in their salad.

Continuing on with being surprised, I spotted cartons of Dole juices in the refrigerated case. It seems F&E is following the suggestions of "not having enough variety" comments from other shoppers.

However, the sight of that makes me cringe a bit. I hope they don't overdo it with this "variety" kick.

Brenda perused the pet food aisle available, but she didn't find anything she likes. In our conversation, she did say that she likes to come to F&E so she doesn't have to go all the way to Ploughboy for meat. And mind you, Brenda is a gourmet cook.

Pretty much that was what I've always said about F&E meat.

Now, the final surprise came from an F&E staff. My check-out machine was having a little bit of a problem with the coupon. I already scanned it, and apparently there was a small glitch when I put said coupon in the coupon depository. The machine kept telling me to insert my coupon and wouldn't proceed.

F&E staff came over and put her lips to the slot for the coupons and blew.

"Please select your payment," the machine chirped.

"There you go!" F&E staff turned to me and smiled.

A low tech solution to a high tech machine. Love it.