Sable Monroe

I ordered a small Instacart order today. Nothing dramatic. I already had most of what I needed in the house.

Frozen mangoes because I make smoothies. Frozen strawberries. The infamous indulgent trail mix from Aldi because that stuff is addictive. Country Crock knockoff margarine because for what I was making, margarine works better.

I was watching the app because that’s what I do.

I saw the driver getting close and started getting ready to go downstairs.

Delivery complete.

I looked at the photo.

That is not my damn porch.

Immediately I messaged the driver.

Wrong address. Wrong address.

I hurried downstairs expecting maybe the groceries were still outside.

Nothing.

I even walked over to the house in the picture.

Nothing.

Luckily, the driver actually came back. Most people probably would’ve kept pushing and marked delivered.

And this is where my quiet Thursday evening ended.

Because somehow we started conducting a public grocery audit.

And when I say public, I mean loud.

Everything was loud.

The driver wanted confirmation of what was missing and what had been recovered, so now I’m outside reading my grocery receipt out loud.

Crackers.

Frozen mangoes.

Frozen strawberries.

Margarine.

Trail mix.

Support is asking questions in my ear.

The driver is knocking.

People are opening doors.

Everybody suddenly seems aware that a grocery-related event is unfolding.

Then the neighbor says she never got any trail mix.

No trail mix.

Didn’t see trail mix.

Never touched trail mix.

Immediately the driver goes:

“Girl, I personally shopped that order. I KNOW I put that trail mix in there.”

And that’s when I realized she was no longer defending Instacart.

She was defending her reputation.

Meanwhile I’m standing there thinking:

I believe you.

I believe the trail mix existed.

I believe it entered the bag.

But I am also not trying to start neighborhood conflict over snack food.

At this point I’m already on the phone with support.

I finally tell them:

“Look, I’m not trying to score free groceries. I’m not trying to get anybody in trouble. Y’all need to talk to the driver because she is actively arguing right now.”

Because respectfully.

This is West Baltimore.

I ordered frozen fruit.

I did not order public conflict.

I definitely did not order cops getting called over indulgent trail mix.

And then somehow, miraculously, groceries started reappearing.

One item at a time.

Crackers.

Frozen mangoes.

Frozen strawberries.

Then somebody handed back my margarine.

Yes.

The margarine.

The one that had already made it into somebody else’s fridge.

Still sealed.

Honestly?

Good enough for me.

At this point I’m trying to de-escalate because this situation had officially exceeded the retail value of the groceries.

Now hear me out.

If groceries sat outside for an hour and somebody brought them in because they thought they were abandoned?

Fine.

But I was watching the app.

By the time I noticed the wrong porch, got downstairs, contacted the driver, and participated in what can only be described as The Great Grocery Arbitration of Thursday Evening…

my groceries had already entered somebody else’s household management system.

At one point I actually said out loud:

“I don’t even know if I want my shit back. How do I know it’s not contaminated?”

Because now people are arguing, the grocery bag smells like weed, and my frozen fruit has seen more of the neighborhood than I have.

The only thing that never resurfaced?

The indulgent trail mix.

Which honestly made me laugh.

Because if you’re going to selectively absorb one item from my order…

I get it.

That stuff is banging.

Instacart refunded the entire order.

So in the end I accidentally got free groceries and only had to reorder the trail mix.

That wasn’t the goal.

That’s just what happened.

But I’m still stuck on one thing.

My butter had already made it into somebody else’s fridge.

That’s commitment.