With many people still quarantining because of the COVID-19 pandemic, quite a number are ordering groceries online. My husband and I have done this many times.
One cool thing about it is that if you’re looking for an item that the store doesn’t carry, the app will suggest another one as a replacement.
That sounds great, right?
Well, yes and no. In theory, it’s a great idea. But as we’ve discovered, in practice, perhaps not so much. Let me give you an example. We wanted to order sponges—the type you use to clean dishes with. The store was out of the kind we wanted. So the app suggested a replacement.
Guess what it suggested? Go ahead, I’ll give you a minute to think.
Are you back yet? Okay. The first replacement they suggested was not another type of sponge. Although that would have been good and made a lot of sense. It wasn’t some type of dishcloth, which would also have made sense.
What the app suggested, dear readers, was—wait for it—Twinkies.
You read that right. Twinkies, as in the Hostess snack cake.
I might get desperate when I need to clean my dishes, but I would get an old rag out before I would dunk a Twinkie into the soapy water.
I’m guessing Twinkie came up because it’s a sponge cake. But it’s not even close to being a cleaning implement. Imagine the mess using a Twinkie to clean your dishes would make! As they say on infomercials—but wait, there’s more.
Another replacement for “sponge” that popped up was Car Wash. That’s all it said, “Car Wash.” I don’t know if it was talking about a sponge that you would use to wash your car or if it wanted me to take my dishes to the car wash to have them cleaned. But this one was way off base too.
The store was also out of butter—at least the kind we wanted. So you would expect what as a stand-in?
I would expect other brands of butter or even margarine. But no. Once again, the app came up with something unexpected.
It suggested oat milk.
I’m not against oat milk. But let’s face it. It’s not the kind of thing you can spread on your toast in the morning. Or slather on a corncob. Or put on a baked potato.
Finally—and this is the weirdest—we were trying to buy some toilet paper. As you may remember, at the start of the pandemic, people were hoarding this stuff. We just wanted to get some to have it on hand. We weren’t trying to order 50 cases or anything. The grocery store didn’t have it. So the app made a suggestion.
Ready for this?
White copy paper.
Not tissues. Not wipes of some kind.
Copy paper. Like you would put in your printer.
Thanks for the idea, but trust me, the paper cuts would not be worth it.
Michele “Wojo” Wojciechowski, when she’s not trying to just order some groceries for goodness sake, writes “Wojo’s World®” from Baltimore. She’s also the author of the award-winning book Next Time I Move, They’ll Carry Me Out in a Box . You can connect with Wojo on Facebook or on Twitter .
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