A bun-tastic day

Today I scored an important victory: I finally found some hot cross buns (photo above). It’s an annual tradition this time of year, and a welcome move toward poor dietary choices. And yet, it, too, is a symbol of change.

Last week, I published a contemplative post ”Four years ago today”, which I ended with:

“This evening I went up to Woolworths (née Countdown) Te Rapa, after I gave Leo his dinner. Day to day life still happens, after all. One does what one must.”

I never mentioned the details of my trip to Woolworths, but I mentioned in a bit more detail in a post on my personal Facebook sharing a “Memory” from 2022 that had a photo of me with some newly-acquired hot cross buns (with a somewhat more serious expression…). I said when I shared the “Memory”:

I haven’t had a single one this year! When I went to the supermarket last week, they appeared to be sold out, although, the Te Rapa Woolworths had LOTS of empty shelves, which they usually do, but it was FAR more extensive than usual. It actually reminded me of what the store looked like just before the first Covid lockdown. Weird!

I actually wrote a lot more about that trip, but I deleted it before I posted it. It was, in fact, too negative, and that was something I didn’t want to project. Nevertheless, I decided that when I went to the supermarket this week, it’d be to New World instead, and, in the deleted text I said I thought I’d made my last trip to the Te Rapa Woolworths. Today was the day I planned to go to the other supermarket.

However, I forgot and remembered several times that we’ve got Easter Weekend starting tomorrow, and then forgot again, which means I didn’t plan around it and go to the supermarket earlier this week. The predictable result was that the shop was packed today. The reason for that is that (nearly) all shops are required to be closed on Good Friday and Easter Sunday (also Christmas Day and Anzac Day morning), though there are weird exceptions and some geographic exceptions that hardly anyone can remember, all of which I’ve talked about several times here on this blog. Anyway, since supermarkets are closed tomorrow and Sunday, it was go today and brave the crowds or wait. Of course, I’d already planned to go today (after I forgot about the holiday weekend), so I went anyway. While it was busy, I’m sure it’ll get worse as this afternoon goes on, possibly into the evening.

Also, since this was a planned trip to New World this week, I was hoping they’d have hot cross buns, and they did, and they had three varieties: Traditional (pictured with me up top), no spice (looked like what I grew up with), and chocolate (shudder). I also took advantage of the trip to buy one of my pantry staples that Woolworths was sold out of last week, and I also picked up some Pams products (their own brand label) to try so I can compare them to Woolworths’ own brands. Very productive, in other words.

However, a dollar for each bun is clearly absurd, especially because to me they seem smaller this year. A magazine format NZ light infotainment TV programme I watch had a segment (not on YouTube at the moment) about how expensive hot cross buns are this year, and a dollar each is actually on the lower end. It almost makes me wish I could be bothered to make some myself, but, yeah, nah. Too much trouble.

So, I couldn’t find hot cross buns last week, saw that my nearest Woolworths was, shall we say, “not meeting my needs as a customer,” so I decided to go to a competitor. Despite me accidentally going to the supermarket today, the busy day before a four-day holiday weekend, I found the supermarket well-stocked and, while busy, it wasn’t as horrible as other last-minute trips (like one memorable Christmas Eve in 2012, when we lived on Auckland’s North Shore). However, the buns I bought seemed like kind of a rip-off, if I’m truly honest. So, all of those things represent changes of one sort or another.

Even before the debacle at Woolworths last week, I’d decided to stop going there—last week’s trip merely triple underscored my decision. There are a few things only Woolworths sells, chiefly the chain’s own brands, which is why I wanted to try some from New World. I had the idea that I might drive to the other side of the city to have lunch with family on that side of town, and pick up a click and collect order from a Woolworths there. That may yet happen.

I cancelled my delivery subscription with Woolworths back in January, mostly so I could make changes to the way I shop. The delivery service has made many mistakes, though most (but not all) have been insignificant. The bigger issue was that without a subscription, delivery charges could add up quickly, and that a subscription encouraged repeat orders, and so, more spending with the one chain. Click and collect has all the strong advantages of online shopping—being able to compare products with each other, read nutrition labels, compare the unit prices, checking if staple items are on special—and all while avoiding flashy in-store displays. Best of all, there’s no fee, unlike when ordering for delivery. So, if I was driving across the city to have lunch with family, I could also pick up my order. These would definitely be positive changes.

And that’s why those hot cross buns are part of a whirlpool of changes. Not all change is necessarily bad, after all.