Three most hilarious Instacart mini-stories

I've ordered instacart three times now since my very first instacart post, and I've procrastinated sitting down and actually blogging about it for a looooong while.

So instead, you get a highlight of the three most hilarious instacart mini-stories.

🍅 a mishap for a tomato hater

I hate tomatoes,

but as a scientist-in-training,

I am also MADE of curiousity,

so every 2 months or so

I will buy and eat tomatoes in a new form

just to see if a New Way Of Preparation

will allow me to enjoy tomatoes.

So far, I enjoy:

• pasta sauce

• tomato and egg

• curries made with majority diced tomato base

I do not enjoy in the slightest:

• raw tomatoes, eaten whole

• this includes grape tomatoes

So I ordered two (2) cans of diced tomatoes

from a the Wholesale Club

(which is like Loblaws owned Costco).

And boy

please,

learn from my mistakes here,,,

please CHECK SIZING IF YOU ARE

TO BUY

FROM A WHOLESALE GROCERY

I have two (2) x 3L of diced tomatoes

Which totals six (6) Litres

SIX GODDAMN LITRES of tomatoes

I do not want to see a goddamn tomato in my life again this is Cursed

---

🥛 bagged milk

I'm lactose intolerant.

Which means I consume about

1L of milk per month

kind of as a rebellion against my genes.

In Ontario, 1L of milk comes in cartons.

I ordered 1L of milk.

Because I went from drinking milk daily in my childhood and early 20s

to one day at the ripe old age of 23 years,

suddenly lactose intolerant,

My budget went from $6 for milk in bulk

to $6 for 1L of fancy organic delicious tasting milk.

I reasoned,

if I am to suffer the consequences

I might as well go for the best,

most delicious milk experience.

In Ontario, 3L of milk is packaged in bags of 1L each.

As someone who only drinks 1L of milk

which comes in cartons,

I do not own a contraption (a milk jug) for holding bagged milk.

I did not buy a milk jug when I moved to live alone because

as the Chinese saying goes

it would be like a bald man a comb.

It would be a tragic reminder of

a life that was.

So when my personal shopper

couldn't find my $6 fancy milk at the store

and swapped it for 3L of cheap milk,

I WAS NOT PREPARED.

LIKE, I'M NOT MAD ABOUT HAVING 3L

OF MILK

because now I am always in the comfort of my home

should, uh, side effects emerge,,,

BUT HOW

AM

I

SUPPOSED

TO

STORE

SQUIRMY

SQUISHY

BAGS

OF

MILK

ONCE

OPENED

?!?!?!?!?!?!?1

This is where my frugal life skills come in.

I firmly believe that

being cheap is the source of all my creativity.

I hoard glass jars because I use them

to store meal prep ingredients,

grow green onions/ other scraps, etc.

So I was able to just

pour each 1L bag of milk into

2 regular sized ragu jars and

1 tostito salsa dip jar

so I'm really hoping is that

the milk won't come out tasting like ragu and/or salsa.

⏳ only time will tell.

stay tuned.

📷 photo of bagged milk and jars, #OrganizedNeatly

📷 photo of tostito salsa jar of milk

---

🔃 the ultimate substitution

so I ordered one (1) box of 24 instant noodles

Now look,

before you judge me for hoarding

or stockpiling

please consider that

before the pandemic began

I already lived like this.

Which,

actually, I realize now, is an even worse thing to admit 😅

BUT, the story is,

I selected one (1) box of 24 instant noodles,

and the guy couldn't find the exact flavour that I had selected

and HERE IS THE BEST LOGIC 👇

he bought me one (1) single bowl noodle.

one.

just one.

not even a package noodle, but a small bowl noodle.

just one

(1)

.

.

.

.

.

So I ate that one (1) bowl noodle one day

and after I finished it

I wasn't even full,

I saved the soup

and dumped some leftover rice in it

and gobbled up that

sweet savoury spicy msg

and accepted that one day

I will regret my unhealthy life choices

but that specific day,

was not the day.

---

I'm making it a mission to blog more

because this is really fun!

I hope I can come back to these memories years later

and laugh over the dumb moments (like this dream about my ikea Tupperware),

reflect on the gains and growth.

If you want to hop on this weird life journey with me,

don't forget to subscribe below! 👇

my instacart experience: a storytime AND a review

March 29th, 2020: placed my first instacart order

March 31st, 2020: amazon and instacart workers strike to protest covid19 hazards on the job

April 2, 2020: day of actual instacart shipment

---

What was happening at the time

• It's the 3rd week into lockdown and newer estimates were starting to suggest that we may be under social distancing measures until June, potentially August, with worst-case estimates until the end of the year

• I had only 2 weeks of food, as suggested by earlier measures, so I looked into delivery options

Please consider these recommendations before ordering:

• Select the no contact delivery option to protect both you and your personal shopper (you can add instructions at checkout to have them text you/ ring the doorbell and leave)

• Try to buy at least 2 weeks worth of groceries and minimize the # of trips. Personal shoppers are at continual risk for exposure

• Tip!!!!!!!!!!!!

Other options I looked into that didn't work

• Amazon: Everything on the Canadian website was pretty much sold out and I ain't paying $6 for 100g of organic, gluten-free, chickpea-based pasta

• Walmart: I was really excited and actually built an entire cart but when I checked out I realized that all slots were entirely booked for the entire week. I couldn't subsequently get into any slots in the following days because they were snatched up so quickly. Delivery was also $10.

• Metro: They DO deliver in other cities but not in mine! Tragique

So I chose Instacart -- but why Loblaws?

• Look, Instacart only services Loblaws customers here in this city so it was my ONLY choice

• And I NEVER shop at Loblaws because I'm not paying $5 for bread when the same bread costs $2 at Food Basics, when they're from the same company

• With this being my only choice I went for it and accepted my fate.

• Thank goodness Loblaws PC and Shopper's Optimum got combined because at least I can rack up those points. It's the only points card I got when I first became an Adult.

Step 1: Shopping on the Loblaws Instacart Interface

• IDKY this is an option, but you can shop either on the Loblaws interface or the instacart interface

• It's the exact same, at least in my limited searches

• I ended up shopping on the Loblaws interface, hoping that it meant higher chance that I'd do the points thing right and earn some points

Step 2: The Grocery List Planning

• I was actually buying for the month, and have a $100 limit on grocery budgets rn so I targeted the main food groups

• I took stock of what was in the pantry and fridge first, and then constructed a list of what I wanted to buy...

Premade meals

• I made the mistake of thinking I could go without frozen premade meals and I would cook every day. Even when I'm home though, this wasn't the case. I needed comfort food that I didn't make

• + frozen dumplings

Carbs

• Keep in mind that I am made of carbs and get really hangry without them

• + pasta (shells!)

• + oatmeal (for breakfast, bc I'm no longer buying bread weekly)

• + noodles

Fruits

• It as 2020 when I set intentional eating goals and started eating apples and tangerines, my least favourite fruits in my life

• I'm not about to drop these habits y'all

• + bag of tangerines

• + bag of apples

Vegetables

• Following my own vegetable life hack post and ordering the LUCY THREE categories of vegetables that will keep forever

• + green onions (to grow, and keep and talk to as friend bc I live alone)

• + frozen vegetables

• + pickles

Meat + Protein

• I needed toppings for my instant ramen and noodles sooooo

• + eggs (I know these are potentially hard to come by but I LIVE FOR EGGS)

• + corned beef (how 2 budae jigae if no off-brand spam???)

• + dried chickpeas & lentils (I have canned but I wanted to learn how to use dried)

Other (treats + supplies)

• + chips (or snack of a sort)

• + coffee filters

Step 3: The reality of what I could order

Premade meals

• [x] frozen dumplings

• I found them, but they weren't the T&T brand (Loblaw owns No Frills, Food Basics and T&T so it carries the No Name Brand and T&T branded items)

Carbs

• [x] pasta (shells!)

• [x] oatmeal (for breakfast, bc I'm no longer buying bread weekly)

• [x] noodles

• This was a success, albeit a few cents more expensive

Fruits

• [nope] bag of tangerines

• [nope] bag of apples

• instead: + yuja tea (for vitamin C + as a treat drink)

• I WANTED TO BUY FRUITS but I actually did not end up buying fruits

• Fruits at Loblaws are CRAZY expensive. Like I'm not paying $8.99 for a sack of apples and $1.39 PER ORANGE when it's like $1.39 per bag of oranges at food basics when it's on sale.

Vegetables

• [x] green onions (to grow, and keep and talk to as friend bc I live alone)

• [x] frozen vegetables

• [x] pickles

• I bought a whole litre of pickles bc it as the only Good Value option (thank you, no name brand)

Meat + Protein

• [x] 18 eggs

• [ nope] corned beef (cannot budae jigae bc no off brand spam)

• [x] dried chickpeas & lentils (I have canned but I wanted to learn how to use dried)

• [x] hot dogs (if I can't have fried spam to add to my noodle soup I might as well make hot dog octopi)

• [x] sardines (if you've never had it, rice & sardines & a pickle is a really good struggle meal)

Other (treats + supplies)

• [x] chips (or snack of a sort)

• [x] coffee filters

• The coffee filters were actually the best value? Also packaged in cardboard, which I feel is more readily recycled

Step 4: When I got clowned by my personal shopper (and also myself tbh)

My drop-off window is 1-3pm, and at 2pm, I got 12 messages.

What I THOUGHT the messages said: Your item (e.g., sour cream and onion chips) has been placed.

• SO NATURALLY I went out to check. Nothing at my entrance to the apartment. Nothing at the main entrance of the house (people get confused a lot). Nothing at my neighbours' doors. Where is anything???

• So I DMed the personal shopper like, hmm please let me know where you dropped things off, and he proceeded to answer in ONLY punctuation marks and emojis until...

• I FINALLY FIGURED IT OUT

What the messages actually said: Your item (e.g., sour cream and onion chips) has been replaced.

• So I quickly apologized and was like sorry I was confused! Please carry on.

• Guess how he responded?

• With a single emoji.

🤡

Step 4: receiving the groceries -- a truly strange interaction

I haven't had social interaction with a real human being in 3 weeks but I swear this wasn't all me. This is how this unfolded.

• I didn't hear when he first unloading the groceries. I had left a message being like, please ring the doorbell or knock loudly.

• I did not hear the doorbell

• I did absolutely hear the knock. I got up to get the door.

• Before I got there, he tried the doorknob.

• ??? What did he think would happen ??? That it would open ??? It didn't, which I hope wasn't too surprising for him, because he was in for an even more exciting surprise.

• As I approached the door but before I opened it, I heard him speaking. He wasn't speaking in English and he wasn't looking at the door anymore after he tried to the doorknob so I didn't think he was speaking to me? I also didn't see a phone though so I was really confused?

I opened the door and immediately heard WHOAHOAHWOHWOAHAOAHWOHWOHAOAHAOHAOHWOWHAOHAA

• my personal shopper had lined up my groceries against the door, and my door unconventionally* opens outward

• He then proceeded to remove one bag (1) so that now I could shift all my groceries slowly, but only enough so that I could only crack open the door so that my head could fit through.

• He then: leaned over the groceries so as not to step on them, placed one hand on the outside of the door for support and placed his weight against it (thus closing it), and then tried to shove a total of 6 bags through that door

• 6 bags

• SIX BAGS!!!

• I'm marshmallow armed and cannot hold 6 bags of fragile glass and eggs so I politely declined and asked him to leave it on the floor as I grabbed 2 bags at a time to bring in.

• Also so he would stop pushing on the door so I could open it large enough for the bags to fit through in the first place.

• To add on to this, the most confusing thing is like, I was communicating important information to him while the entire time he didn't once respond because he was busy chatting over the Bluetooth in a language I didn't understand, which made it very difficult for me to convey to him that

• if you push on a door, it closes the opening, through which you are trying to shove groceries through

• but he heard none of that, and as soon as I said, "actually I can't hold 6 bags I'm gonna take 3 right now", he finally lets go of the rest of the bags, turns around and leaves.

• we never once made eye contact

• I yelled thank you after him ???

• confusion level: 92%

😵

Step 5: I disinfected the f*ck out of all the groceries (step optional dependent on pandemic status)

Website Ease: ★★★★☆ {4/5}

Price: ★★★☆☆ {3/5}

Usefulness in pandemic: ★★★★★ {5/5}

Personal Shopper Customer Service Experience Overall: ★☆☆☆☆ {1/5} there was an attempt

Personal Shopper Customer Service Experience Leading To The Most Exciting Event That Has Happened To Me All Week That I Could Blog About: ★★★★★ {5/5}

This was REALLY fun to review and I kind of want to do more! Let me know down below what I should review next!!!