The Monthly Curse

Once a month I get a headache, cramps, extra mood swings, and tend to drive my family crazy.  My face erupts in a terrible acne frenzy.  I get gray hairs just thinking about it.  This once-a-month activity is known to our family as... "Grocery Shopping Day." Ugh, I can feel the cramps just thinking about it.

Living out in the boonies has taught me that organization is key to grocery shopping.  There is only ONE small, over priced grocery store in a town near where I live and I refuse to shop there.  So, once a month I travel for one hour to a different town and get our groceries (we do get our milk at a gas station when we run out.)  I keep a running list on the fridge until it is time to go.  It is cheaper for me to drive an hour in an SUV to get groceries than to drive five miles into town and shop at our local grocery store, that is how insanely overpriced they are. 

I feel very fortunate because our gardening produce lasts us for about a year.  We have potatoes, squash, and many different kinds of canned fruits and vegetables.  Our meat (chicken, beef, pork) comes from our family farm.  And we are completely spoiled because my sister-in-law supplies us with a never ending supply of farm fresh eggs.  To top that off, my husband shot a deer this year so we have venison also.  If there was a drastic famine, we would be fine.

But, even with all of this food that we do not have to buy, we still have to occasionally venture to the grocery store. 

Today I chose to go to Wal-Mart.  Oh, how I dislike Wal-Mart.  But it is "one stop shopping."  At 0900 in the morning, the entire store was chaos.  I almost got ran over in the parking lot by a mini van containing a mom on a mission with several little kids.  My life flashed before my eyes.  Then, to top off a bad experience, there were two little old women that were fighting over the last container of vanilla extract...it was bad.  Screaming at each other while both of them pulled the vanilla bottle back and forth.  What is wrong with people?

Before I knew it the cart was full of food from my grocery list and I felt that the ginormous walls were closing in on me.  "I hope I can make the last few items fit...I do not want to grab another cart..." I thought to myself, starting to become unglued.  There is nothing worse than trying to maneuver two carts through the checkout line and outside in a crazy parking lot, through slushy snow.   

Who stands out in the middle of a busy parking lot, on a freezing cold day, in a futile attempt to get snap shots of their groceries?

I had carefully arranged the assortment of food in the cart so that it would be easy to empty onto the check out counter, bag by various categories of items, place into the back end of my car, unload into our kitchen, and unpack into our pantry, fridge, and freezers.  The redundance in this process is painfully necessary! 

In the midst of a grocery getting frenzy, I almost lost my life to a minivan...two little old ladies opened up a can of whoop-ass...I spent three hundred dollars on groceries...had at least a trillion panic attacks...and am exhausted.  All for being to stubborn to shop at our local grocery store.

“Ever consider what pets must think of us? I mean, here we come back from a grocery store with the most amazing haul - chicken, pork, half a cow. They must think we're the greatest hunters on earth!”--Anne Tyler