My friend Tim found this in a shopping cart at Garwood Shoprite.
It is quite frankly the saddest little list I've ever seen. It says, "Metamusil, eggs, cat food."
Somewhere, a constipated cat lady is making an omelette and I hope she isn't as lonely as her list makes her seem.
The grocery list could be a man's, although I doubt it.
There is something oddly touching about how the 't' in cat and the 'f' in food are darker and outlined several times over. I can picture her on the phone with someone, idly tracing her list, maybe wishing she could buy Vodka and chocolate but knowing it's not good for her stomach.
Is it possible she really only bought those two things? Or are those the three things she was afraid she'd forget?
Sometimes when I'm food shopping I remember my mom practically crying in frustration while standing on a long line at the Matawan Foodtown. She said, "I feel like I've spent my whole life in this stupid store," with a subtle introspection she always surprises me with during ordinary moments. Isn't that a common fear...to be swallowed whole by the suburbs, your whole life swirling around displays of Cheerios and toilet paper?
What is worse, shopping alone for yourself and your cat, or shopping for your family, and going home, and thinking about the lady and her cat?
Right now I'm making chicken dipped in cornflakes and sweet potatoes for Dan. He bought the stuff on Sunday from our Shop-rite up the block where we both have probably logged already over five hundred hours of our lives so far. But everyone needs groceries, right?
I'm thinking about you, lady-list-leaver. All the people and things I can't know in the aisles of the world.
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