The Grocery List
It is a dreaded event that hits the house every four weeks or so. It is a tiny creature on ten legs that sneaks up your spine while you are rummaging the fridge looking for the fruit preserve or when you are hunting the pantry shelf searching for a particular spice that you were sure you still had stocks of. Once it gets to the back of your head, it balances, draws out an outsized hammer and whacks you on the head.
The time to make a grocery list
It is a balancing act, resources being finite, choices multiple and desires infinite.
Get champagne, the heart says. Also some avocados, chia seeds, brie and piles of dark chocolate. And that diamond ring? Just go for it.
We need more clothes hangars, my prosaic brain says.
Live a little, the giddy heart urges. Silk and lace drapes will make the windows look grand. We can get new sofas too.
Pay day does fatten the bank account and give one the feeling of being rich.
So I sit down with a piece of paper and begin writing down the things our home needs. Things we really need. Pink champagne tops the list. Can’t help it, I’m out of wine. Life without Belini with one of those imported grapes floating on the top is just what we need. And it has to be in the lovely flute glasses I saw the other day at the mall. The’re divine, long stems that end up in delicate bases with a touch of pink in them – just at the base, nowhere else …
#Son1 : Peering over my shoulder : Oh good! Is that the grocery list?”
Me : Yep ( Trying to cover the page with my hand )
#Son1 : Looks more like a every-thing-other-than-groceries-list.
Me : Flipping the page and writing down Toor dal : 1 kg, Coriander powder : 1 pkt
I continue in the same vein for some time to complete silence. I raise my head to note that #Son2 has joined #Son1 and they’re both standing watching the list solemnly.
Once I am done, they take the list and go off to get the groceries.
How unfair! I can remember a time when they rode the carts at the supermarket and I spent more time unloading goods we did not want or could not afford. It wasn’t so long ago.
When I grow old, I’ll climb into a supermarket cart and ride it to forbidden sections like the wine section and the cheese and chocolate freezer and load the cart.
Yes I will!
