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Weekly Shopping

    I went to Trader Joe’s yesterday and spent $100 on tortilla chips and fruit leather Ends-N-Pieces. Again. Now I must face my grocery penance–ENORMO STORE.
    Jump in the cart! Yes, you too. And bring your farm-raised Alpaca! There’s room for everyone in the Woodman’s double-wide. This rig has no horn, requires a half-aisle skid distance to stop and a four-cart-width to turn. I know lady, I know it APPEARS I am heading straight toward you and the yogurt shrine, but Lady don’t you and your freshly-set hair worry a thing. In a mere 1.7 minutes, my children and I shall volley this baby clear away from dairy and launch ourselves back toward the ethnic aisle where we belong. As in “Hispanic/Kosher/Asian” as in GROCERY SEGREGATION AND OBSCENE PLANTAIN/CHALLAH/DOROWAT FREEZER INTER-MARRIAGES. See? We’ve almost cleared the cheese bricks. We’ll be on our way in a jiffy.
    Whoakee doaks!
    Let’s think about dinners…
    Face-free for Husband (Check)
    Gluten-free for 6 (Check)
    Dairy-obfuscated for 6 due to his outgrown allergy that nevertheless repulses him due to his brainwashing to avoid dairy exposure before age three (check)
    Dairy obfuscated for 3 because he does whatever 6 does. (check)
    MEEP MEEP MEEP! FUN FIZZ ALERT. KOOLAID FUN FIZZ ALERT. STEER THE FoSHIZZLE AWAY FROM THE FUN FIZZ, MIZZ!
    Husband bought kids FUN FIZZ last time Mommy disappeared for “work” and now 3 needs the juice. The corn-syrup, aspartame, yellow-numerical-dye, smiley faced ROLAIDS FOR CHILDREN just add water beverage.
    Anyone have to use the potty? Before Mommy’s generation-parenting-with-toxic-food brain explodes into confetti onto the faux-cobblestone floor?
    Three? I am enjoying your Oak Tree, but do you perhaps need to use the potty? My how you git jiggy wid it, but lets jiggy over to the potty. YES YOU DO. YES YOU DO. YES YOU–did. But just a little…Carry on!
    Dinners. I still have no dinners.
    Oh dear Lord and Yah-friend. I cannot face another corn tortilla or rice noodle. After all, I am Free to Be Gluteney! You prefer we observe your sabbath, but have you ever tried a gluten-free challah Yah-friend? And what PRAYTELL do you recommend for passover? I do not mean to sound hostile. Not at all. I could just use a little help. And some food that does not taste like RICKETS. Oh Yah-friend? Could you float over and and grab a $13.00 pouch of Xanthum gum for me? It’s next to the $47 gluten-free granola.
    No sweet pizza lady, the children will not sample your wears, but COME TO ME. EVIL GLUTEN SCARY CHEESE PILE O PORK SLICEtte, COME TO ME! Just the sustenance I need to launch this grocery semi the mere 5K to check out.
    Let’s see…$117.00 worth of rice-milk, 12 organic eggs. And Lemon Funcking Fizz. Packed in 1,113 plastic bags because the reusable bags sat below the cart all-the-while the checker checked and I wrote this blogpost in my head.
    Weekly shopping at its finest.
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    Check out my friend Lisa’s blog Smacksy that was just named a Blog of Note. Smacksy is the uber humor/mom blog: superbly-written, funny, Sweet, and featuring BOB!


    Also…
    There are only a few tickets left for Creative Alliance ’10 next month in Ojai, CA. This intimate gathering of 40 highly-motivated on-line women offers the chance to forge authentic one-and one connections in a beautiful setting. AND it features a live LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER: SALON. Please join us!

    0 thoughts on “Weekly Shopping”

    1. Yuliya

      First, snort! (RITALMAO)rolling in the aisle laughing my ass off!

      Second, how dare you enter a supermarket when you should grow your own sustainable sorghum!

      And last, check out Nature’s Path Organic Mesa Sunrise Cereal (gf of course) on Amazon, if you subscribe & get it shipped to you it’s cheaper (woo to the hoo)

    7. Erika

      Your weekly shopping is my weekly shopping, right down to the $117 worth of rice milk. You deserve a badge of survival. Now, off to check out this Smacksy person.

    11. annie

      LOVE THIS!! So glad I’m not the only who either leaves all the reusable bags in the car or under the cart and walks out of the store with enough plastic to cover several landfills.

      Keep shopping there so we keep getting stories like this please!

    14. Kate Coveny Hood

      This reminds me of my good friend, Diane who has to cook food that is gluten free (for her son) and dairy free (for her daughter). How many times have I heard her long for the days of delivery pizza.

      I dread shopping for food and preparing meals. And I always feel like I arrive home with bags full of food for the kids (who are very strict about their all cheese and bread diet) but none for Chris and me. One would think I’d be skinnier…

    16. Miss Grace

      WHERE did they move the fruit leather ends and pieces to??
      I can’t find them anymore in my store. Maybe they’re in the same place as in your store?
      (They used to be with the other dried fruit, and not with the regular fruit leathers and energy bars, but now they are neither place?)

    21. Suzy

      I could never be Jewish, a vegan, vegetarian, fruitarian or anything else that restricts my food. I’m just too lazy and would prefer to:

      A. Burn in hell
      B. Be covered in a plague of locusts
      C. or rashes, whichever comes first.

    22. The Empress

      I’m with Suzy..

      but loved reading this, and have felt the dent in the credit card, too.

      Food allergies: not by choice.

      And congrats to Smacksy! I love Lisa, and sweet Bob.

    25. jennygirltherat

      “Yah-friend” makes me laugh hard every time I think of it. This has been going on for days. I’m going to use it at my next Women’s Circle/Bible Study.
      The fact that I attend one of these makes me laugh every single time, too. But then, they’re the kind of gals who screamed with appreciative laughter when I told them about the “WTFWJD?” t-shirts.

    28. injaynesworld

      Ah-ha! That must be the event Stephanie (Ooph) was telling me she would going to. And then she’s driving up here to hang with me for a couple of days and drink wine.

      A word of warning. Ojai is where I broke my neck. If you should require hospitalization when there crawl, if you have to, to Ventura. Whatever you do don’t let them take you to The Little Shop Horrors that passes for an emergency room there.

    29. seekingelevation

      OMG, I literally just came home from grocery shopping. I sat down to read some blogs because I realize that a hundred something dollars later, I still have no items in the house that could go together to make dinner. I’m so over it.

    30. Erin I'm Gonna Kill Him

      God, grocery getting is harrowing. I spend $200 only to realize that I’ve essentially started a canned food drive and still have no dinners. My mom used to say that donkeys were so stupid that if you put two bales of hay in front of one, it would starve to death because it can’t decide which to eat from. She has also likened me to this very donkey after watching me food shop.

      Loved this. FACE FREE!! Never heard but plan to use now!

    32. The Flying Chalupa

      This is why I avoid Costco’s. But – can you believe – I have not been to Trader Joe’s? Ever?? Gasp! And I HAVE been looking for a way to get rid of $100 quickly.

      Also, everyone seems to know about Smacksy but me! I feel so left out. Must rectify situation.

    34. MommyTime

      Ah, the warehouse that is Woodman’s… I feel your grocery shopping pain. What kills me is feeling like the pantry at home always has STUFF in it, and yet that stuff cannot be concocted into meals, and so we go and buy more stuff. I think it’s time to declare a moratorium on grocery purchasing until we eat up whatever is in the pantry. I’m pretty sure that noodles with a side of mandarin oranges counts as lunch.