Hello and I'm Deb Bowen.

And I'm Deb Bowen.

And today we're going to share with you some fascinating stories and questions that you all have taken the time to send in. We've got some good ones this month, don't we?

We have some interesting tales. We do indeed. All right, I'm going to dive in with our first one. Okay, great. Our

listener says my experience didn't occur somewhere atmospheric or charming, but at the

grocery store. The cost of groceries is so high these days so I was being

particularly careful with what I put into my cart. I was shopping on my own without

my kids so everything in my cart was well and truly accounted for.

I walked through the baking aisle and remembered that I needed vanilla.

A few weeks back I picked up a cheaper brand of vanilla to save some money.

Then when I went to bake it, I noticed it had a cancer warning on it.

Okay, I admit I tossed it, not wanting to feed it to my family.

So anyway, I'm in the baking aisle and knowing I'll have to pay up to $20 for a good bottle of vanilla

extract. That is true, Deb. Have you noticed that?

I have indeed.

It's a pricey little spice bottle. As I mentioned, I'm watching my grocery budget,

so I hardly glanced the bottles before I thought,

nope, not today.

I'll use cinnamon for flavoring for now

and just buy the essentials. I moved on, finished my shopping and lined up to pay.

I get frustrated with the self-checkout so I waited in line to pay with the cashier.

There was one lady in front of me so I put the bar across and loaded my groceries onto the conveyor.

...