Amy Lu's View

I’ve tried not to make my blog too much about COVID-19. That’s getting harder and harder as the days go on. Even if I stay away from writing about the virus itself, I can’t help but write about how social isolation, etc., is directly affecting my life (which, blessedly, so far is much less than it’s affecting others). As the saying goes, write what you know.

Which means I’m writing a lot about food and clothes–which I think I would have written about anyway, but just in different ways.

And tonight’s post isn’t as much about the food, as about how we got the food: We used Instacart to order from Cub. To jump to the takeaway, it was highly successful, and I’m so thankful for our shopper, Jessica. (Yes, I did try to tip well). I just gave Jessica a 5 star rating.

This was our first time using Instacart, although we used to get deliveries from Coborns Delivers–and way before that Simon Delivers–before they just suddenly went out of business in the fall. We’ve still got their flippin’ delivery totes.

I’ve tried using Instacart before, but given up when I’ve been frustrated with logging into the app on my phone. But I finally got motivated by trying to social distance as much as possible.

My first time using it was confusing:

• When would our order arrive? It arrived much sooner than I expected, as when I placed my order this morning it said it would come BY Saturday and it actually came tonight.
• How long would it take from Jessica started texting me until the order arrived? A while–my order was big and complicated. Would I receive an update that Jessica was on her way? Yes.
• What would they substitute items with? Would our shopper pick higher calories alternatives? Turns out that Jessica texted me and the app let me approve/veto substitions, so I avoided the higher calorie seasoned frozen cauliflower.

It was stressful:

• See above confusion related to substitutions
• When exactly would they come? Would I be able to wrangle StanLee?

Exciting and entertaining: It was like my own private reality show–what would Jessica substitute my fake cheese with?

Social, affirming and empowering: I felt like I was shopping right along with Jessica. Plus, the fact that it took her so long to find my crazy items made me feel better that it takes me so long to find my crazy items. And I felt like I could give Jessica honest feedback–“No, I don’t want that”–and be demanding without judgment.

Oh yeah, and we got food, too.