Groceries

              For someone who hates to cook, who would happily live on chips and coffee, it’s odd that so much of my day-to-day revolves around food: getting it, making it, cleaning up after it. It’s my albatross. When I get yelled at for running out of bananas or I find my son eating his cereal dry because there’s no milk, or at dinnertime when all the expectant eyes are on me, (even the cat and guinea pig give me baleful stares), I find myself feeling like some sort of failure on one hand, while feeling enraged on the other. I feed myself! Why can’t they?! Why is it always me?! I don’t see anyone else offering to make me a salad, or pick up bananas on their way home from work. I don’t eat bananas, yet I’m the one who has to make sure we have them. (I am really hung up on the whole banana thing, apparently. It’s funny the things that sting. Ten years post-virus, is this what I’ll remember? The bananas?)  I don’t see anyone else offering to menu plan or chop a damn vegetable. And not one to ever keep my mouth shut, or suffer in silence, I’ve asked for help on the dinner front. They look at me like I’m crazy. Like, “This is not part of our arrangement.” They go to school and work, and I wield a knife and wipe up crumbs. It’s worse now than before, because now everyone is home when they used to be out. I’m on the hook for four extra meals per day.

              Since Whole Foods only dropped off milk and an onion, I had to venture out. I went to Stew Leonards, which I hate. It’s the IKEA of grocery stores: a maze of people and food, where you’re forced to walk all the way through. There is no surgical strike at Stew Leonards; it is a hunter-gatherer expedition. I always feel like I should go in there with a spear and a fur-trimmed parka.

              I witnessed a few horrifying things at Stews that would not have been horrifying two weeks ago. A boy, about ten years old, was walking through the store with his mother. He touched EVERYTHING: running his hand along all the cereal boxes, picking up blocks of cheese and putting them back down. He grabbed a pack of cookies, his mother said no, he threw them down on the shelf, and three more packs fell on the floor. He picked them all up. That kid touched EVERYTHING. Suddenly I was completely skeeved out. Then it occurred to me that this must have been happening all the time. Every day. For my entire life. Every item I’ve ever brought home has already been snotted on and caressed by a grimy child. Oh well.

              The other thing that wouldn’t have previously given me pause: A man whistling over the fruit display. WHISTLING? Are you kidding me? Please, sir, spit and exhale a little bit more over my apples. OMG. What is wrong with people?! But two weeks ago, under those same circumstances, I would have smiled and been reminded of my dad who loved to whistle.

              Stews was generously stocked. (Hooray, rice!) But I don’t know if I can endure going there again. But I might have no choice.

              Stop&Shop is out of the question. I swear that place is built on an ancient burial ground. My shoulders tense whenever I walk through the door. And once they unleashed that aisle- prowling android with the creepy eyes, I began my boycott. My husband drags me there occasionally for late-night ice cream runs and I give the robot the finger and try to get it to run into me so I can get my picture on WestportNow: Woman Tackles Robot in Produce Section. Come at me. Marty. I dare you.