Memory Monday: Grocery Shopping

My mother

GROCERY-SHOPPING AND HOW IT’S CHANGED

            After I finish my microwave breakfast burrito and instant cappuccino, I need to plan my grocery list.  It’s really hard these days to get all the food my family needs.  First, I have to get the newspaper and look at the food ads so I can see what the specials are. Then,it is such a pain to go from store to store (to get the best deals), and  bring home bags and bags of groceries.  It takes a lot of time and muscle to lug in all those frozen skinless, boneless chicken breasts, Rocky Road ice cream, and deli meats and cheeses.  It is such a tiresome ordeal to do all that grocery shopping, but someone has to do it.

            Sometimes, I envy my mother. She had a much simpler way of handling her grocery shopping.  Because my father worked as a butcher in a grocery store, there was never any question of where we brought groceries; we only shopped at the store he worked.  Whenever Mother needed something, she simply gave Daddy a very short list of items she needed, and he brought them home in the evening.  Of course her list was short because she milked up to seven cows twice a day (so she didn’t need to buy milk, cream, butter, or ice cream--homemade peach was her favorite). She raised, killed, and dressed chickens (so she didn’t need to buy eggs or a plump hen for her homemade chicken and dumplings). She raised pigs and calves (so she didn’t have to buy pork chops, steaks, or roasts), and she had an acre-sized garden in the summer (so she didn’t have to buy fresh vegetables, and since she canned all summer, she didn’t have to buy canned veggies either). 

           Sometimes, I long for the simpler times when I all I would have to do is send a short grocery list with my husband in the morning, and in the evening, he would bring home the few I items I needed.

            Well, I just heard the paper hit the front door, so I’d better get started.