Random Thoughts About Food and Bank Cards

The Tesco where we shop is notorious for not having fully stocked shelves. In fact, it seems like the store is 1/3 empty all the time, especially the fresh produce.  There were no potatoes in the store tonight, as they were on sale for 65 pence a bag and promptly sold out. If I want a potato soon, I guess I'll have to go to Ireland. Tesco could make so much more money if they just kept up with their ordering! 

Also, they're notorious for only selling the smallest sized packages of everything. I remember grocery shopping with my mom when I was young.  Sometimes I would pick up a tiny jar of pickles and say, "Look Mom!  These are the pickles I'm going to buy when I go to college."  And she would say, "Stop it!  I don't want to think about you going to college." Tesco is just a larger scale version of shelves full of "college pickles" and such, except we all know that pickles aren't pickles here.  Anyway, interestingly enough, the only table salt I could find was a HUGE bottle that should hopefully last us the rest of our time in England.  The chocolate chips, however, were only sold in bags that held about 1/2 cup of miniature chocolate chips.  I'm talking Chips Ahoy kinds of chocolate chips.  They have these things called "chocolate buttons," but they're quite large.  Where can I get medium sized chocolate chips, preferably Ghiradelli milk chocolate chips? Do I hear "care package," anyone?

As the England=Red Tape saga continues, we STILL do not have functioning bank cards here.  It turns out that they didn't know we actually wanted any when we opened an account (!).  When we went in to inquire after them, they ordered them and sent them to our American address (!!).  When we checked up on them a couple weeks after that, they told them that they couldn't be mailed to our address here but we could pick them up (!!!).  When Nathan went to pick them up, they wouldn't give him mine, even though it's a joint account (!!!!).  When we tried to use it at Tesco tonight, Nathan realized that they didn't give him a PIN number to use with it (!!!!!).  Because I pass right by the bank before it opens on my way to work and pass by it again after it's closed, I'll have to wait until Saturday to get mine (!!!!!!).