Friday, December 6, 2013

Hunting and Gathering

A long time ago, when I was younger and had much less stuff, I used to like shopping a lot more than I do now. In those days, it was almost like a sport, and I could spend hours prowling the mall, and a visit to the big warehouse store near us to scope out the possibilities was at least a biweekly event. Nobody there ever asks you if you found everything you needed, because it's understood that that's your job.

But times have changed for me and I couldn't tell you the last time I was at the mall, much less Costco (which I still insist on calling Price Club). Well, I couldn't tell you before today, because through a series of events, I left school early this afternoon. I was in my car by 1 PM, and on my way home I did stop at Costco.

Maybe our school canned food drive was on my mind (for the first time ever, no students in my homeroom have contributed a single food item), or maybe I was thinking that we needed snacks for both Tolerance Club and Writing Club, or maybe it was some sort of phantom holiday habit, but whatever it was, I suddenly believed it would be a great idea to go there.

There had been some changes since my last visit. If possible, I think the carts are even larger, and there were some tall refrigerated units near the back that were kind of new. Otherwise, the place seemed the same, but that is not why I went there. Like in the old days, I went to see what new quarry awaited this consumer. What huge things could I track down and fill my huge cart with to wait in that huge line and pay a relatively huge amount of money for, given the bounty of bargains I usually bag?

And, in the hour I was there, I walked every aisle and looked at hundreds of items. I almost bought many of them, too, but in the end I left behind the fleece pajamas, the fold-flat hand truck, all the boxed sets of books my students would borrow and probably never return, the 30 pack of neon post-its, the new phones, the 60 white cleaning cloths, and the ten pound bag of grapefruit, and in addition to the 29 food items I purchased for the drive, and the 108 snacks I bought, I only got 2 big jars of Dijon mustard, a pound and a half of assorted Lindnor truffles, A big thing of toasted coconut cashews for Heidi's brother, two pounds of grape tomatoes, 600 generic benadryl, and 350 extra strength Tylenol.

Hopefully, that Tylenol will last a while.

2 comments:

  1. Heartfelt post, but hopefully that Tylenol will NOT last, and you'll toss it away after reading up on acetaminophen. Long-term use of this stuff can be lethal,
    http://www.naturalnews.com/001523.html
    Save your receipt? :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks, Rouls. I'm enjoying the Broo considerably. Happy Holidays!

    ReplyDelete