2002-09-30 - 9:06 p.m.
LONGING FOR GREEN STAMPS
Grocery shopping generally is not a really good time. Mr. Philately used to like to grocery shop. He�d carefully make a list (after nagging me to start the list). He�d ponder his list lovingly. He�d then take down his coupon collection. (The man can collect anything except wives I believe.) He�d check all the expiration dates and then match the coupons to his list. He�d arrange them in an envelope according to some scheme I never understood and off he would go, happily returning in an hour or so with the groceries for the week.
Unfortunately, Mr. Philately has been pursuing other hobbies and no longer has time for grocery shopping. I don�t do grocery shopping as a hobby. I do it as a chore�and it shows. Sometimes I know where there are coupons. Sometimes I actually have a list and the list sometimes contemplates dinners for several days. Sometimes I even remember to bring the list. Most times, I just pick up something on the way home from work. It�s not the most economical way to do it but it gets the job done.
Luckily, I am not much of an impulse grocery shopper. Even if I go into a store hungry, I rarely emerge with something that I won�t or can�t use. Having a low general interest in food seems to protect our budget a bit. The girls complain that I rarely have any interest in snack foods these days and it shows. They have little interest in dinner foods and at mealtimes that shows too so I guess we�re even.
Today, I entered the store and tried to see what Mr. Philately saw in shopping. I had no mystical experience. Aside from the fun of listening to the friendly bickering between the cashier on break who was in front of me in line and the cashier behind the counter, I got no charge from the job. I had no feeling of accomplishment. I experienced no nirvana. I didn�t have any urge to run screaming from the store but then I didn�t have any urge to be there either.
When I was feeling cynical, I used to suspect Mr. Philately took on the grocery shopping because he got away from children and still got credit for helping. When the kids were little, I might have considered it a treat to go to the store if I could have left the kids at home. I still remember the day that Mr. Philately came home late and I practically threw a very colicky Day-Hay at him, swept up a pajama-clad three year old Kat, and trudged out to the grocery store just so Kat and I could get away from the incessant screaming. That trip to the store may well have been the only trip to a grocery store that I ever appreciated.
Of late, I�ve been wishing that grocery stores would give away green stamps again as they did when I was a kid. It�s not so much that I need a bicycle or anything else from that catalog. It�s just that Mr. Philately loves stamps�and if they gave out stamps he�d shop again.
___
Update on my health: The CT scan did not show gallstones nor did it show inflamation but, in my doctor�s opinion, it didn�t rule out inflamation either. The problems I am having seem such classic symptoms of a gallbladder problem that he has decided to refer me to a surgeon. There is a chance that if we take out the gallbladder it will turn out to have been futile but he thinks there is a greater chance that the gallbladder really is the problem.
LAST YEAR: Hair Heaven
LAST FIVE ENTRIES:
Honesty
Inside the Box
The Right Question
Silence as a Measure
Having No Life
previous - next
|
Copyright 2006 by Ellen |
