Confessions of a dealaholic (rice, rice baby)

I generally don’t make impulse buys. No–that’s a lie: I NEVER make impulse buys. When I head to somewhere to buy something, I buy that something and nothing else (it’s not cheap: it’s falling under budget). Best Buy can offer me all the accessories and add-ons they want; I’m not walking out of there with anything more than what I planned to buy. Grocery stores hate me: I buy only what’s on sale with a low mark-up (milk, meat, and bread). I’ll pass on the magazines, sticks of gum, bars of candy, and Aqua Globes. That’s how one can afford to survive when they have no money. At least I use to be…until I caved and made my first-ever impulse buy.

A 20 pound bag of rice.

I was at the grocery store to by milk (and only milk) and saw a giant palate stacked chin-high with 20-pounds bags of rice. The sign said $10 and called it a “special buy.” Since I am a smart shopper, I disregard any claims to “A Deal” unless I can verify the price myself. So I went back to the store, got my milk, and intended to return to the checkout lane. But as I passed the giant palate of rice, I noticed it was now only waist high. Between now and the time it took me to walk to the milk department, something like 9000 pounds of rice disappeared. And that’s when I saw it–a marching brigade unlike one you’ve ever seen before.

There must’ve been a half dozen of them–Asian folks pushing shopping carts filled with 20-pound bags of rice. Some were together; others scattered into different lanes. I even saw one wander over to the cereal aisle. But the facts were unmistakable: Asians we’re stocking up on the rice–creating a rice reserve so large you could feed an entire county (maybe China).

I don’t know how they got the word out. Maybe it was one giant family; maybe people were calling their friends–that’s a detail I’ll never know. The only thing I was certain of is that I was potentially looking at A Deal. It had to have been A Deal. People don’t rush to buy something unless it is A Deal. When the grocery store is selling 12-packs of soda for $2 a case, the shelves get wiped clean. With rice disappearing faster than chili in front of Jessica Simpson, I knew I was seeing A Deal fade before my very eyes.

Without trying to sound racist (yet doing so), I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say Asian people know a thing or two about rice. I don’t know why they needed that much rice (maybe it was for their Chinese food restaurants), but I’m gonna trust an Asian when it comes to rice-buying deals–the same way you’d trust an Italian to know a good pizzeria.

The palate grew smaller by the minute. It was surrounded by Asian folks–covered like white on rice (bada-bing). It was down to my knees now and I knew what I had to do. I grabbed a bag and tossed it into my cart.

Twenty pounds seems like alotta rice but considering The Wife and I cook rice twice a week, we’ll eat it. Twenty pounds at $10–that’s gotta be like a nickel a meal. Sounds like A Deal to me…even if it was an impulse buy.