The Daily Grind Is Written about everyday family life, By A Local Lady.
The Daily Grind The Grocery Shop It can’t just be me, can it? I love to cook and I love to eat, but by George I do not like the process you have to go through to bring the food into the house. It’s yet again time to do the weekly shop. I have procrastinated and am now going to wear the consequences. It’s afternoon and I am taking the kids and we are all starving, a recipe for disaster ! We are out of all the essentials though and it must be done. As we pull into the car park , I repeat my usual spiel about staying near the trolley, not running off and not buying rubbish.
Everyone agrees with the terms and we head on in. Now I am sure that the Supermarket is definitely thinking about how I can fit my exercise into my day when they put the bread in one aisle and the milk at the other end of the shop, Not! No, no, the plan, in actual fact is to keep me in here for as long as possible. This ensures that the ‘what ever factor’ kicks in. Usually somewhere around aisle 6 or 7 it occurs. The Informer sees me failing from my lack of not making a list and tries to negotiate the choice of cereal. ‘There’s not that much sugar in this one and you get a really cool fridge magnet’ she says. I know full well we have more then enough magnets on our fridge and some rather bedraggled Art work that needs going through, but with a sell like that, how could I refuse? and it gets tossed in.
I envisage tearing into the box and scoffing down a handful, the perfect sugar hit, to push me through the rest of the shop, but I resist. We soldier on and turn into the next aisle only to realise we are down a member. The free range child has found the toys. Since when did toys get sold in super markets anyway? Was the lolly aisle not exciting enough on its own? We back track and locate him and I know exactly what’s coming next. ‘Mum can I have this please? it’s my most favourite thing, you said next time and it is next time now,’ He’s right God damn it, caught out on a technicality. We’ve just had Christmas so I do what any other responsible parent would do, I cave and tell him he can have it but will have to pay me back with money from his piggy bank when we get home. This is of course money I will never see but the words sound terribly convincing as they pass over my lips.
The trolley is by this time getting quite full. The free range child is now riding on the end of the trolley, making it even more difficult to push but I can keep an eye on him, and perhaps tone up the arms at the same time. Maybe this is a going to be a work out after all. We have an arrangement of food and I start to question what we might have for tea tonight and think to myself that I really should have made a list and even done up a meal plan.
That would have made things so much easier. Then I remember that I will be doing it all next week and not to get ahead of myself. By the time we make it to the checkout the easy to grab chocolate bars are an essential, everyone is over it. As I load the checkout we remind the lady to just leave them out so we can devour them as soon as we get to the car. Car is loaded, and then unloaded again when we arrive home and everything is gradually packed away. What an ordeal! I sit down with a cuppa and think that I will definitely be doing that list next week, that is of course until Life gets in the way and I have to wing it again!
