The Tory Party

ALDI

So there was this one time I worked at ALDI. Wait. That time is totally right now.

I am not supposed to disclose operational information, and I don’t know how much information that covers, or how to bring up “um, I have this blog?” with a manager, and I don’t want to risk it.

But as someone who used to regard ALDI as sketch and now never wants to shop anywhere else, I have to spread the word.

My first experience with ALDI was street-cornering in Iowa for Howard Dean (ugh, Howard Dean whatevs), and I was all like, what’s an ALDI? And a friend said “it’s this grocery store that’s really cheap because they put the food in boxes in the middle of the floor and you just take it.” And this is the most concise description evar.

And then I moved to Winston-Salem and shopped there once because it was walking distance away, but I unfairly projected the shadiness of my apartment on ALDI and never went back.

Then this year my housemate kept coming home with all this Kirkwood and L`Oven Fresh and Mama Casita food and I`m like WTF and he’s like ALDI and I`m like SKETCH.

Then I went with him once and got semi-converted. Cheap calcium-fortified Propel? Cheap TP? Ooh.

Then I started working there. Jeebus Lord. I will say the hiring process displays the same sleek Bavarian efficiency as the shopping process.

Also, when I worked at Burger King, there were such things as “slammed” and “dead.” At ALDI there is no “slammed.” There is just ALDI. There is always the thing you are doing, the thing you are trying to get back to, and the thing you won’t get around to today.

After I got off work today I did a serious grocery run at ALDI for the first time, and here are my findings:

• The cottage chease is the best I’ve ever had. So seriously. If you get excited about cottage chease like I do, wear your hoppin` shoes. $1.69 a tubba. No lie.
• Yogurt? Also quite badass. I had an individual tubba after lunch and was quite seriously eating and swearing, it was so good. Not just as good as other yogurt (I tend toward the Breyer’s Probiotic whatever the crap). BETTER. Swear words at the dinner table better. Tubba is $1.39. Little tubbas are $0.33. No. Lie.
• Bernaners I got like six for $0.71. I don’t know how that compares to the $0.59 a pound at other grocery stores. Cheap.
• Fit & Active Frozen Fruit Pops. They are seriously nothin` but frozen strawberries mushed into tubes — no sweetener or nothing, and they are like a hit of sweet strawberry crack freebased in your ear. $1.99 for 8.
• Watermelon. Seedless and regular are the same price — $2.99 — and I eats it and make little yummy noises. Is so good!
• Kids Chewable Vitamins. OK, don’t laugh, but kid’s chewables are seriously the only way I`ll remember to take my vitamins. But good sugar-free ones (PowerPuff Girls, ahem) are hard to find, and I got the Lowe’s store brand and they are so bad when I eat them I make faces that scare my dog. But I have to finish them because otherwise they’re wasted. Anyway. Welby’s sugar-free chewables were $1.99 a bottle (60 tabs) and so good they make PowerPuff Girls vitamins taste like bitter poison anchovy mouth grenades of pain. Even the orange ones are good, people. EVEN THE ORANGE ONES.
• Glucosamine and Chondroitin - 100 tabs, and a dose is 3 tabs - $9.99. I don’t know if that’s good, I’ve just been feeling creaky lately and thought I`d try it, because it is ALDI.
• Tuna pouches. Flavored and unflavored. $1.19. Yeah, NOW YOU TRIPPIN`.
• Sliced lunchmeat - One pound. $2.99.
• 3 lb. bag of frozen chicken breasts - $5.99.
• 100 fl. oz (32 loads) of Astra laundry detergent - $1.99. A dollar ninety-nine! Is your brain asploding?

Prices at your local ALDI may vary, but DUDE.

The cashier who checked me out was seriously so damn fast I did not have time to move my cart around and scan my debit card before she was ready for me to pay. Like, I was not putting the stuff on the belt fast enough for her. It was insane.

Someday I will be this fast. Oh yes. Someday.

You may be freaked out by the lack of brand names. You may pick up something that looks just like a tubba Kool-Aid, but says “Mixade,” and you`ll think, “Gah! This is a cheap knockoff! This must be inferior to Kool-Aid!” This is that THE MAN has trained you to think. The Man is also responsible for gourmet cat foods. Don’t listen to The Man! Try the Mixade. No, forget it, try the yogurt first. That yogurt frickin` annihilates.

I don’t know if I`ll ever feed Jake “Shep” dog food (he eats the Iams, oh yes), but that is probably because I am one stop on the puppy subway from Total Dog Retardation. TDR is a condition greatly worsened by all-night puppy nervous cuddles due to thunderstorms.

So now you so totally wanna shop there, right? Maybe just paper towels and stuff at first, cos you’re nervous, but still — you`ll be buying Peanut Delight in no time. Here’s how you do:

• ALDI is less crowded Tuesday - Thursday, mid-morning or mid-afternoon, or first thing when it opens. Note I didn’t say not crowded, just less.
• Bring a quarter to rent a cart. You get the quarter back, but this way people have incentive to bring the carts back to the corral which is l33t and Bavarian and awesome.
• If you don’t want a cart, you can take an empty box which is bound to be lying around. If a box has a couple of items still in it, you can take it and be a good ALDI citizen by stacking those on top of the rest.
• If you use a box, be prepared to put every item loose on the belt. This speeds scanning time. Little pallets of cans are OK. I think.
• You’re gonna bag your own groceries — at the bagging counter over yonder. Don’t bag at the register! We will give you stinkeye. You can buy ALDI bags (too so cheap, like $0.10 apiece for nice reusable plastic ones), bring your own, use boxes you stole, use nothing, whatevs.
• If you have a cart, push around the cart of the person in front of you so the cashier can load groceries into it. If you have a box, as soon as you can put that box in the cart so the cashier can load into your box. Saves evarbody time. Evarbody happy.
• If you’re using debit, scan your card as soon as you can. If you’re using cash, please have it ready. And don’t worry about making change. We have change. It’s koo.

Yays! And unlike Wal-Mart, whom ALDI shut out of Germany due to having such a stranglehold, ALDI is not (to my knowledge) evil. And, unlike Target, once beloved and now anathema, ALDI never supported a pharmacist’s decision not to fill a Plan B prescription.

Ah. My liberal heart is free to beat another day. I`m going to go eat some cheap meat.