When I was a kid, I loved to sleep over my best friend's house. They had a cat and a dog, and their household was entirely different from mine. They also had dessert every night. The thing is that I could have dessert whenever I wanted to as a kid, a million times a day if I wanted, because my parents were desperate for me to eat and gain a little weight. But I wasn't particularly interested in food. Yet dessert was somehow different at my friend's house, because it was something sort of official, like dinner. And I liked that.
Every once in a while, though, there wouldn't be anything good for dessert. Sometimes there were only pecan sandies. I think if I were to eat pecan sandies now, I would actually like them. But at the time my friend and I thought they were gross, and her brothers thought so too. And that is precisely why her father, who did the grocery shopping, bought them -- because he got tired of always having to buy more food. And if he bought pecan sandies, then he could always claim that there was a dessert available...but he also knew that no one would eat them. It's quite a tactic. He found a way to never run out of dessert!
When we were kids, we couldn't understand why he did this. But now it's crystal clear. There comes a point where you just get tired of buying food and having it run out. It sounds absurd, I know. But I ask you: how many granola bars can you buy in one week? No matter the number I buy, they all get eaten -- in three days! So I think, I could just never buy granola bars again and save all that granola bar money. Sometimes the food disappears so fast, It's as if I literally can't buy enough. You can only fit so much food in the cart, and I'm not going to turn into one of those people who uses two carts. At this point, I find grocery shopping to be an exhausting endeavor anyway. I walk through the store having contraction after contraction, hoping they are harmless and not leading me to some crazy early preterm delivery.
And so another boy, who will surely eat a lot, is on his way. I heard some statistic about how it costs over $200,000 to raise a child to age eighteen. I believe it. And that's why sometimes you lose your mind and start buying pecan sandies for dessert.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
One of my best friend's always had pecan sandies too!!! I never ever had them at my house, but I could always have them at her house--that's so funny. I actually liked them. They always kept them frozen and we ate them that way and I thought that was interesting too.
And Nina, I am glad you have resolved to never become one of those people who have two carts. I like your sense of standards.
Pecan sandies at a best friend's house -- a funny thing to have in common.
As for my standards, well, I've got to start somewhere, right? Who would I be if I was dragging two grocery carts through the store?!
It's odd - I have this strange thing with food - sometimes it brings me joy to have it eaten and sometimes I feel like people can be vultures.
Michele--that's it. Exactly.
Post a Comment