I don’t remember a time in my life when my mom did not have a calendar hanging on some wall in our house where the dinner meals for the month were planned out in two-week intervals. I’m not a 100% sure she did it when I was a baby, but she still does it today even though my dad spends most of the week away on business and the one sister still living at home eats on her own schedule. The night before grocery shopping day, my mom would take the calendar off the wall, fill in meals for the next two weeks, and then make her list based upon those meals. When I was young, we went shopping in the evening. She’d take one or two of us while the rest stayed home with Dad. As I grew older, she’d take one or two of us during the day because either Katey or I could stay home with the others. Today, she takes Emry every two weeks, an outing Emry always enjoys.
When I first moved from home, I lived with my grandfather for a year and he went shopping every week so I’d create a menu in my head for the week and write down what we’d need. When I moved out and lived with a friend, I’d run by the store when I needed to. Rarely did I cook anything particular for me. In fact, even later, if you had gone through the cabinets in my apartment in Minnesota you would have probably thought I was half starving myself. But I confess oatmeal was a staple. I also ate at camp quite a bit. And, yes, I did have ice cream once or twice for dinner. (Those were the days!)
When I got married, I had to adjust to cooking for two and quickly resorted to what I had grown up with: a calendar on my refrigerator with meals planned out in two-week intervals based upon Ed’s pay schedule. Other women who come into my homes and see this hanging on my fridge are amazed at my organization and planning, but I don’t know any other way. And it works…at least until the entire world decided to go crazy this week.
The truth is, making a meal plan and grocery list has been my least favorite task for the past six months. Thinking about food when 95% of it is always unappetizing is sickening. So, I waited until the very day we would go to make the list. It was one of those weeks where every little thing had been emptied: chili powder, parsley, toilet paper, all meat in the freezer. So, my list was a bit longer than usual. We go shopping in the evening because we have only one car, so after dinner Thursday we piled in and went to one of the three stores we needed to go to. Not feeling well and tired, I thought we could do the two less item stores Thursday and the more item store Friday. Thursday should have been an indication of what was to come. I’ve never seen not one piece of chicken available in the freezer section, even the small one at Fresh Thyme. But I was too tired to realize the dominoes were starting to fall. Or maybe I’m just naïve enough to believe humanity is somewhat sane.
You’d have to live with your head under a rock to not know about coronavirus. I’m not going to add my soap box to the millions on social media who have something to say on the matter. We all know our inboxes are full of warnings. Schools are closed. The media talks of nothing else (both right-wing and left-wing), adding to the pandemic, a word which now means PANIC. The reports are too conflicting for me to take the time to follow it all and try to read the truth between the lines (I’m not sure anyone – right or left – is actually reporting the truth anyhow), but you would honestly think we’re facing the Apocalypse. It certainly looks that way at the grocery store. Everyone in Lafayette had to be have been there. Toilet paper is all gone. The meat freezers near to empty. Can goods are almost non-existent. Even all the sugar was gone.
One soap box moment: People, if we are facing the Apocalypse, neither a garage full of toilet paper, a freezer full of chicken, nor a basement full of can goods is going to save you. Those who have stock-piled sugar…well, at least you’ll die happy.
All I wanted to do was my bi-weekly shopping. Not wade through idiots who think the end of the world has come but somehow toilet paper is going to protect them. I was so frustrated by the end of the night, I was near tears. I went home and did something I have never done: ordered chicken, hamburger, and toilet paper online to pick up in the store. Why? Because I think hamburger might ward off coronavirus? No. I’m merely trying to feed my family for the next two weeks. The same thing I’ll do again in another two weeks. I’m just praying things have calmed down by then.
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