Adventures in the Interactive Food Museum

....Ala' Paul Riser (Babyhood): aka the grocery store, or in NWA, Walmart Supercenter.

I noticed last Sunday morning that hardly anyone was at Walmart between 7 and 8 a.m. on Sunday mornings, so I hauled my insomnia-depleted carcass out of bed and went on a grocery run before the rest of the family got up this morning.

First stop, the automated coffee machine. You plunk in a buck and it gives you a hot, fresh cup of coffee.

So, I'm tooling through the store, with my list and my long-evolved grocery strategy. You know...the plan you have in your head for shopping. How you survive making that many decisions...yes to this, no to that...

and maybe it was because it was morning (not my best time of day) and maybe it's because I am ultra money-conscious right now, but I was kind of cranky about it. I was kind of annoyed by the price of meat being so high here and by the obviously well-to-do,blonde and on top of that, disgustingly-thin chicks buying their expensive organic chicken...witchilly (that's right, as in like a witch) and judgementally thinking I could be that thin too if I could afford to eat only healthy food...all the while craving a can of Spaghettios, which even my children won't eat....anyway, I digress. The point is that I was being a brat.

So it's been a couple of weeks since I got groceries. I like to see how long I can make a grocery run last...usually like three weeks if I throw in pancakes as a supper once or twice. We've been using kleenex as toilet paper for two days, but I really REALLY hate the mini-grocery run, because let's face it, you go in for toilet paper only and come out with toilet paper, a package of matches, clearanced flip-flops, a dog toy and a cube of pop. And also, it destroys the rhythm...if you buy things at different times, they run out at different times; but if you buy everything at the same time, the laundry soap, dishwasher detergent, shampoo and paper towels all give out at the same time. It creates a small amount of control over my little universe. Are you beginning to sense that I have a lot of neuroses concerning grocery-getting/consuming? You are correct. It has been shocking at times for my husband, like when I go ballistic when he finishes off a gallon of milk a full day before I planned to buy groceries. I assume he should understand that when the milk gets low, you nurse it along to make it last: you NEVER just selfishly gulp down the rest of it without thinking about what I will put in my
coffee the next morning (I have a stash of non-fat dry milk for this purpose, actually). I have these rules in my head, you see. I don't know where they came from, but they are rules. My greatest guilty pleasure: opening a new package or container of something before the old one is gone. I can hear my mother yelling at me in my head, but I ignore her and do it anyway.

And then of course, there is the matter of health. Also a very loud voice in my head. The voice always votes for whatever is on "God's Diet" which I used after I had Mattie to lose the 45 pounds I put on. The rules of God's Diet are: if you can kill it, pick it, pluck it or dig it, you can eat it. No sugar, flour, bread, pasta, carbs, etc. But if you want a steak with a baked potato and real butter, have at it. This is an excellent diet which just melts the pounds off in no time flat, but it also leaves you a little out at ends for say, lunch, the great sandwich hour. So I try to stick to pretty healthy stuff for the most part, but Calvin is always hungry and I can either try to fill him up with fresh fruit and veggies every three minutes, or I can mix in some cheap filler by way of Saltine crackers and 99 cent oatmeal cookies. I also try to avoid the 33 cent mac and cheese, but it usually follows me home at least once a month.

So now maybe you understand some of my crankiness. I have the rules. I have the budget. I have the expensive meat. It's all very complicated in my head.

So I'm in the bean aisle. Beans are perfect actually because they are crazy cheap and they are on God's diet. I buy a lot of beans. (I convince Vin to eat them by telling him that they are tiny pills of mashed potatoes; Charleigh, on the other hand has never met a bean she didn't like.) And my cart was pretty full. Okay it was overflowing already. There was nothing fancy in there, but it was so full I was getting a workout from pushing it.

A man passed me, sitting in one of those motorized carts. He and a friend were shopping together and his friend asked if he wanted beans. He had maybe five things in the little cart on the front of the scooter.

"I don't know..." he hesitated. Then he looked at my cart."I wish I could spend that much money." he said flatly.

I mumbled something about "cupboards being empty..." but mostly, I was just dumbstruck. At first I was annoyed. After catching a whiff of him, I thought (witchilly again) "Maybe if you spent less money on cigarettes..." and then I caught myself. Or God caught me.

"You've been going through this store ungrateful and focused only on what you can't have. You're mad because you have to try to make healthy meals on a small budget. You're fussing like a spoiled brat. That guy has fewer options than you. He's disabled. He's alone. He's older. What do you think his future will look like? You at least are able bodied and can earn something for yourself. You know how to cook healthy meals for your family. You have that ability because of me. How about a little gratitude?."

I headed to the checkout line humbled.

The cart was actually so full, I couldn't get it all emptied to move foreword and get the bags the cashier was filling with scanned items. The lady behind me said, "Oh! I want to go to your house! Look at all that good food." I must have given her a double take. "I have three kids." I offered almost apologetically. She laughed, "Yes, my children are grown now, but when they were younger, all their friends wanted to come to our house because they liked our food better"...she laughed to herself and the cashier hooted to me, "Yep, just wait til they're teenagers!" and then wished me a great weekend.

I began to wonder...am I...well, for lack of a better word, "normal"? Do I buy too many groceries? Don't we basically have less than other people in our cupboard? I am left scratching my head. So if any of you want to chime in on this, what is a normal grocery budget for you? Is there a better way to do this thing? What are your grocery strategies? How do you cut corners and stay healthy?

I told you I think about things too much.