Short Stories From 10 Years Ago – April 8, 2004
Grocery Shopping
Short Stories From 10 Years Ago – April 8, 2004 – I have four cherry tomatoes, an egg, a tin of cat food and a bottle of white wine in my fridge. I know it’s time but I hate grocery shopping. If I had a brain that wasn’t engaged in whine mode, I would be thrilled that I have the money to go grocery shopping, a car to get there and a well-stocked grocery store a mere ten minutes away.
But – oh no, I have to get my quotient of snivelling in for the day. Okay, having said that, and acknowledging my good fortune – I simply do not like shopping for food. It’s the same when I just have to dash up to the green grocer at the top of my street. Yammer – yammer – yammer.
When I was a kid I loved to go to the grocery store with my mother. She always let me ride in the cart when I was little and then stand on the end of it when I was too big for the kiddie seat. We always shopped at Loblaws (which I mispronounced as a child and called Blablaws) – until the A&P came to town and then my mother’s allegiance changed because the parking was easier and they accepted cheques if you were on their special list.
They also had a great system of rolling the bagged groceries along a conveyor belt which exited along the outside of the store. You could drive up beside it, jump out under a covered roof and pop your groceries right into the trunk. The check out boys were cute too, although I doubt that my mother noticed. So it’s not that I have traumatic, dark, unhappy memories of grocery shopping that have haunted me into adulthood. I think it’s that I have to much to do most days and it’s just another chore on the old “To Do List”.
However, once I’m out of the store and have unloaded my groceries in my kitchen and put them away, I love the look of my fridge – full of fresh, crisp greens, juices, eggs, cheese, pickles, containers and bottles. That’s when I realize just how fortunate I am. I never go to bed hungry or wake up wondering if I’ll have breakfast. If I was rich, I would have my groceries delivered and then I’d wake up in the morning and call down on the intercom and ask ‘Cook” to prepare me a light breakfast – no lunch because I’m meeting a colleague at the Club Hoity-Toity at noon, but dinner in the formal dining room at seven because I was expecting ten of my closest friends to share the evening meal. But I’m not rich so I’ll be making my own breakfast in the morning.
Like most things in my life, I just need a little attitude adjustment about grocery shopping. I should remember back to when it was fun, flirt wildly with the carry out boy and the cute guy behind the meat counter and get on with my day. As an alternate I could figure out how to become a millionaire and have someone else perform this irritating, little chore for me. On my way to the corner store to buy a Super 7 Lottery ticket, I’ll make a plan and it the meantime – there are worse things in life than grocery shopping. Wow, that sounds like the “new” me talking.
As I sit here typing away on my keyboard and remembering grocery shopping with my mother, I realize I must acknowledge that this would have been her 97th. birthday if she was still in this life. Wherever you are, Mary – I’m thinking of you today! Best love.
