Today’s lesson concerns grocery shopping. It’s important to use certain strategies and mental approaches, and if you follow along, you can greatly reduce the chance of seeing anyone you know, increase the likelihood that normal, edible, high-in-sugar-and-salt items end up in your cart and guarantee that you emerge from the weekly ordeal with a measurable amount of testosterone still coursing through your veins.

It’s best to do your shopping early in the morning, preferably on a Sunday before 8AM. This way you’ll kinda have the market to yourself with plenty of room to take evasive action if need be and, should you get paralyzed in the cookie aisle, there won’t be any witnesses. Always start by getting a cart, you never wanna be that dork who “only came in for one item” and now stands in the express lane with his arms full, a pound of butter in his pocket and a gallon of milk and a box of chardonnay on the floor that he’s pushing along with his foot.

You never wipe the handle of your cart with one of those antimicrobial wipes because if you do, you may as well walk up to the store manager and tell him, “I piss sitting down and I’m terrified of groceries, especially things made with whole grains.” Men typically should not shop with a list, it just tells the world you’ve been sent to the store by your wife, that you aren’t capable of independent thought and that at least one of your balls is rolling around at the bottom of your wife’s purse.

Start every grocery day on the produce aisle, as you’ll be spending the most elapsed shopping time here. Lingering in produce can produce worthwhile results because, hell, it’s eight in the morning and chicks often roll into the grocery wearing almost anything, but often it’s without underwear. They want you to look at them, it’s not weird and you’d be amazed at how many gals ask me to help them pick out a melon. I’m here to help. Besides, the library and the grocery store are the two best places to meet normal, thinking people. What could be a better start to a relationship than touching fruit together?

It’s kinda nice to spend some time with the fruits and vegetables, especially the ones that are brightly colored that nobody eats. As you pick your fruit and, if you must, the leafy green vegetables that give you bad breath, make sure to put them in plastic bags and secure them with a green twisty-tie. This is mostly for the fruit’s safety and every other food in the store gets packaging, why not the fruit? Have you ever seen the guy who picks out three bananas and then just plops them into the cart unwrapped? What’s next, is he gonna go into the bakery and pick out six or seven glazed donuts and toss them in right next to the laundry detergent and kitty litter? The guy that fails to properly bag his fruit is a disorganized fruit abuser who deserves to be shunned. Oh, one other thing, never pay extra for “organic” produce. Everything you see came off of a tree or a bush or out of the dirt in somebody’s field – it’s ALL ORGANIC!, and if you buy organic stuff people will think you’re a vegetarian and that can be a hard label to shake.

So now that you’re done bagging the produce you need to systematically head down every other aisle in the store, but don’t worry it won’t take long. Most of the aisles at the market are non-essential aisles. The pet aisle, the paper towel aisle, the canned goods aisle, the baking and spice aisle, the greeting card and magazine aisle, the pasta aisle (you should buy a container of parmesan cheese every single time you go to the store) and that freaky aisle that has light bulbs and motor oil and safety pins and superglue – all of these aisles are non-essential. That means that you can rush down these aisles as fast as you can push the cart, just keep your head on a swivel for anything that looks familiar. Most of the shit on these aisles you only need once or twice a year so if you forget anything, crap, you can just get it next year.

Now that you’ve saved valuable time by racing through most of the store, you can focus your energy on the aisles that contain the products that make life worth living, namely, the ice cream aisle, the cereal aisle, the chip/cracker/cookie aisle, the sauce and condiment aisle and the bread/deli/meat section.

Plan on spending at least five minutes looking at the ice cream. Load your cart with the ice cream essentials that will get you through the week, then browse the length of the aisle going cooler to cooler to cooler looking for any new or seasonal items that may be especially delicious and fattening. Don’t worry about being judged, that’s why we spent so much diligent work in the produce section, the produce in your cart will offset and neutralize the ice cream you’re now loading into it. Lots of people will actually think highly of you when they see your fruit and ice cream combination, “Oh look, he’s a fat guy that’s trying.” If you think about it, ask an employee whether there is any ice cream in the back that hasn’t been brought up to put on a shelf yet … you wouldn’t want to leave the store if there might be a new ice cream flavor on a palette in the back.

You should remember that the labeling on the cereal aisle is designed to confuse you. There will be multiple prices on every item and you don’t want to be the guy who gets to the check stand and says, “Hey, I thought the Cap’N Crunch was only $1.99?” only to be humiliated when the checker says, “Uh, no, the $1.99 price only applies when you buy nineteen of them!” Even if you don’t have any children at home you should still buy three or four boxes of cereal every time you shop. Start with a box of Cheerios and a box of Frosted Flakes and then throw in whatever tickles your fancy. Keep in mind that the biggest boxes, the ones that will only fit in your walk-in closet, will typically be the best value.

Make sure you’re well stocked on Tabasco, Red Hot, steak sauce and barbecue sauce. If your kitchen pantry closes easily, you’re probably running low. If you see a barbecue sauce you’ve never seen before, you should always buy it, especially if there’s a pig or other cartoon animal on the label. There will always be amateurs in the meat department. As a general rule, you shouldn’t speak to them or make eye contact with them, because people get disoriented in the meat department and often ask the first person they encounter, “Do you work here?” One of the main reasons we shop on Sunday mornings is that lots of times the butchers will fry up some new brand of bacon and hand out free samples. Whatever you do, don’t let on to the other shoppers that you know this. Just casually make your way over to the meat counter and have a taste. They usually have toothpicks set out, grab a toothpick and stab as many pieces of bacon as will fit on your toothpick. Back away quietly, grab your chicken and steak and exit the meat department.

The chip/cookie/cracker aisle works in the same basic way as the ice cream aisle. Start by adding the required snacks to your cart, that would include saltines, goldfish crackers, a couple different kinds of Oreos, plain Ruffles, Famous Amos bite-sized cookies, Cheez-Its … Now slowly walk down the aisle looking for new editions or something you missed. Be methodical – this is important. Don’t forget that you can always come back and that there are often cookies, chips and crackers on sale and on display near the register.

Your work is done here and it’s time to head to the register. Don’t be in a hurry, you got here at 8AM and the game doesn’t start until 10 – it’s all part of the master plan. Let people go ahead of you, even if they have more stuff than you, people will think you’re nice and people rarely think that about you. When you put your stuff on the conveyor belt make sure you use one of those plastic dividers – the last thing we need now, after you’ve put in all that hard work, is for someone else’s groceries to touch yours.

You have to bring your own bags now. Make sure you have yours, but every time you put them on the counter, complain loudly about the dirty government pricks who changed the law because they found a plastic bag floating in the Indian Ocean. I know you’ll walk your cart back to the cart corral after you put the groceries in your car.

It was fun shopping with you. See you next Sunday!