What I Ate The Weekend I Shopped From the Depths of Impulsivity: June 25–27, 2021

Friday night, Nic left town with Ollie. About two hours after they departed, I headed, on foot, to the Jenifer Street Market. It’s a tiny grocery store about two blocks away. Reminds me of a European grocery store. The shelves are stacked high, the aisles are narrow, the lights are not bright enough to blind you, the prices are confusing and the selection is limited. I love it.

We don’t usually shop there when we have a big grocery need. We make the rounds of other, larger stores in our vicinity, with our car in tow. But I only had three things on my list, so I figured I would pop over and pick those up and be on my way. A frozen pizza, some ibuprofen, and Pull-ups for Ollie. I estimated a total of around $20. I could get generic ibuprofen, but Pull-ups are expensive and I like a frozen pizza with some bells and whistles.

Twenty minutes and $64 later, a little dizzy, breathing heavily and with my arm muscles burning, I returned to our apartment.

I had the time of my motherfuckin life.

**

When I was 18, a credit card company sent me a credit card. I remember where I was when I opened it. Sitting on my mom & dad’s bed in the back of our trailer. I spread the paperwork around me, read up on the APR (not that I knew what in god’s name it was) and decided to go for it. I didn’t know what it meant to build credit. I didn’t know what it would eventually mean to live the rest of my life semi-buried in debt. I only knew that that shiny little card was a ticket. Out of my current life. Past my then-projected trajectory. I tucked the gold card in my pocket. A few years later, I bought a ticket to Italy with it.

There, I discovered the quaintness of European grocery stores, foods that made me feel alive, the utter, complete and total isolation in the world I had been seeking, and the divine gift of reinvention.

**

After walking into Jeni St Market, I sniffed the strawberries (they smelled good), investigated five pints of them (too many smashed ones to pay $6.49) and walked on. I touched an avocado (too hard), then a couple more avocados (projected they would be ripe in 3–4 weeks) and walked on. Found the frozen pizzas, smiled at the affordably priced $3.99 for an all-cheese Jacks, but settled on the Mediterranean Vegetable, Whole Milk Mozzarella, All-Profits-Go-To-Charity Newman’s Own. Grabbed the Incredible Hulk Pull-Ups (*actually called Goodnites)and the ibuprofen and glanced down the aisle I was in at the checkout line. I should have continued towards it. I had what I had come for. But then, as if commanded by some inner compass, I turned on my heel and headed in the opposition direction.

I found myself in the dairy section. Three Oui yogurts, yes please. (I’d considered them for years but had never bought because I feared their adorable glass jar packaging was done forcibly as a distrction from a quality product.) But now I was ready to know.

One container of cottage cheese. I don’t really care about cottage cheese much but Nic LOVES it and I like picking up the container sometimes and thinking about how happy that weird curdled substance makes him.

One container of rainbow sherbert. Sherbert is not my jam. Ice cream with a very high percentage of milkfat in it is my thing. But my dad adores rainbow sherbert. And when I pull off the hard plastic top and it tries to suction itself back on, I think of how he feels when he opens a container himself. I think of how intensely layered our relationship is, and I find so much comfort in merely eating his favorite thing.

One container of rice pudding. Kozy Shack. Because I wanted to remember my mom. We shared rice pudding years before our relationship was tattered. We shared it back when we shared more sweetness with each other.

Then, a box of veggie hot dogs and a box of veggie corn dogs, and some cinnamon applesauce. All with Oliver in mind.

A pint of $5 ice cream. Because I wanted to remember who I was before I started eating $10 per pint ice cream.

A baguette. Becuase I was still pissed off over having walked to a bakery Wednesday morning and them telling me that the bread oven was broken. All I wanted was a fresh, crusty piece of bread that I could slather butter, jam and nutella on. And I COULDN’T HAVE IT! And it was a full 2.75 days later, and I was still in mourning/wild anger over it.

Fresh mozzarella, in the ciliegine size. Cherry tomato size. Perfect for eating with cherry tomatoes, and basil. A caprese. The last meal I want to eat if I’m ever on Death Row.

A tiny, pink two-pack of individual-serving cans of Moscato called something cute like Toscato or Rosato or something, marrying Italian-ness with the Italian-ness, I guess? I don’t usually finish a glass of wine. So I knew that I would likely waste some of each can. But I love the act of pouring special, fizzy drinks into pretty glasses, and I like sweet sparkly wine, and I don’t buy it when Nic is around because he doesn’t like it. But Nic was gone and I was alone and I was allowed to drink sweet sparkly wine and to even fucking waste some of it, if that’s what I wanted.

A can of vegetable soup. In case I needed something that required nothing of me but that still told an overall story about vegetables and health.

And then at the checkout, before the cashier gave me my total, I wildly grabbed a strawberry blow pop and a white chocolate Lindt truffle. The girl bagging my groceries looked at me like, ‘do you need these left out for your toddler?’ and I looked at her like, let’s be real here: we both know I am the toddler. Please bag all together with the rest of my impulse purchases, made possible by my credit card.

I don’t regret a thing. I don’t regret Italy. I needed to leave home. I don’t regret Jeni St. It was probably the most fun I’d had in weeks. I walked through those aisles, making purchases that somehow connected me to people I missed and loved, and somehow connected me to me.

**

When I got home, I pulled out all my treasures, and just stared lovingly at them. That’s when I realized there were truly no fresh vegetables, nor fruits, to be found. And I remembered, that all throughout the grocery store, I kept hearing a little voice in my head say, ‘Go back to the produce section and get cherry tomatoes. Go back to the produce and get — at the very least — some cherry tomatoes.’ Yet I walked out without them. And anything else pictured in the second-largest section of the food pyramid.

I didn’t lament any of the purchases I had made, but I wondered how I would be able to make a well-balanced plate when the way I had shopped had absolutely no balance.

Three hours later, a friend texted and asked if I’d like to go to the farmer’s market bright and early the next morning. You know, a place where the focus is on shit tons of fresh produce. And then 24 hours later, another friend texted to tell me she and her family would be leaving for some travel, and did I want all of their produce? It would just go bad if I didn’t take it.

So I’m not entirely sure how to say this all without sounding insanely positive, or like every tiny thing may be wonderfully fated — but in my experience, at least when I was 18, and still again, this weekend — everything maybe was or is?

Everything really kind of has been.