Hold the onions...

Today was a day filled with doing "adult" things. I hate days like this. Ken and I got up, cleaned the house, stripped the bed, did the laundry, and then had to go food shopping. It was one of those, "be responsible and take care of things" kind of Saturdays. Honestly, I prefer the "I'm still hungover so I am going to watch movies on OnDemand all day whilst easting some expensive take-out" kind of Saturdays. To me, the weekend should be filled with pleasurable things like this, instead of more work. But it had to be done. Especially the food shopping. Since all that was left in our fridge was chicken broth, condiments, and onions. Speaking of this, why are there always onions left? I feel like I bought one bag, months ago. Why are there so many onions? They are like never-ending. Does anyone else notice this about their onions? Do they multiply or something? Is it because I leave them in that bag? Are they having little onion babies in my crisper? Sorry. Enough about the onions, and back to the topic at hand: food shopping.

I am going to make an honest confession here. I absolutely, unequivocally, HATE food shopping. Now, I know that hate is a strong word, but seriously, if I never had to food shop again (but somehow the food still magically appeared in my cabinets), I would sacrifice my left arm. Therefore I feel that the word hate is totally appropriate.

I understand that some of you may think that I am being overly dramatic here. "Come on, food shopping may be an tedious chore, but it is a necessity," you say. And "it is not like you have to do it everyday!" And "Don't you claim you love to cook?" Yes, you are correct in all of these criticisms. However, I assure you, it is not the chore part of food shopping I dislike so much. I mean, I do lots of chore-like activities on a daily basis and they don't raise my ire to such a level. And I do love cooking, and eating, all the good things we get. Ironically, nothing makes me happier that walking in the kitchen when I am hungry, seeing the shelves stocked, and realizing I have unlimited delicious options before me. No, it is not any of these parts of food shopping that I detest. The part of food shopping that I absolutely abhor is trying to navigate that damn cart through the aisles packed with people.

Because I am not talking about skirting around one or two carts, or the old couple arguing over what size box of saltines to buy. I am talking about full-on, at-capacity, bumper-car kind of crowded. Overtired mothers pacing up and down looking for nothing in particular. Screaming, runny-nosed little kids throwing things in carts and hitting each other with rolls of toilet paper. Acne-stricken stock boys, who are more interested in flirting with their Britney Spears wanna-be co-workers, than helping you find your item. It's pure horror people. Wes Craven kind of stuff.

And who designs these layouts? Walking through those aisles you feel like cattle marching to the slaughter. Your wedged in like sardines, annoyed, and increasingly miserable. By the time you pack in all your groceries, stand in line at the Deli for 20 minutes (which poses the question why does that take SO long?), and run back three times for the things you forgot, you finally arrive at the registers. Or what I like to call the second layer of Dante's Inferno. I kid you not, its like hell trying to score a decent paced moving line. "Wait! Number 12 has one less cart at it! Quick put down the article on Jon & Kate and shift over there!"

The agony doesn't end until you finally squeeze through the one (really one?) automatic exit, and finally reach the promised land, AKA, the parking lot. Ah! Fresh air and room to spread out. As long as you manage to cross the lot without getting run over by the idiot in the SUV, life is good again. And despite the fact that you still have to carry all those bags up the stairs and into the house, nothing seems quite as bad as the trail of tears you just endured. So you unload the car, unpack the bundles, start putting the food away. You fill the freezer, put the fruit in its bowl, and line the fridge shelves with various flavors of yogurt. You made it through, nothing can bring you down now. Until you open the crisper and ask yourself "Wait...why did I buy more onions? Damn it!"