Rolling around the aisles of big-box stores has become a norm in America, but it is not my norm. Not by a long shot.
I live in an urban environment where not only would I have no way of getting most of the “big” boxes home, I wouldn’t have anywhere to store them if I did.
This is why putting me in one of those stores with my mother in her sprawling suburban area can be the perfect setting for an adventure bordering on a sitcom. The 52-year-old free spirit writer and the 77-year-old feisty retiree.
“Yes, Mom, those are a great price,” I say as we stand in front of six cans of crushed tomatoes packaged together. “And yes, that’s the brand I like, but I have nowhere to put them in my apartment.”
“Well, I don’t know how you can leave them here,” she says with a shrug.
Maybe because I am already picturing the two boxes of coffee K-cups sitting on my kitchen table at home knowing I need to find a place for them?
It is a whole different world for those of us who “travel light” through our lives, isn’t it? Whether we’re living in an Airstream or a one-bedroom apartment or something in between, we have become almost eccentric to the rest of the nation when it comes to where we shop and how we spend our time. We are not part of the wave of people making a whole Saturday out of going to mega stores and stocking up.
I live riveted to simplicity in my life while still managing to occasionally enjoy the outsized outing with others. Yes, by all means, let’s drive there and come out with enough food to feed the United States Army.
My mother is holding up a bag of dried figs. She knows I like them.
“Mom, the problem is, it would take me a long, long time to get through that bag,” I say. “They won’t stay fresh.
“Figs keep a long time,” she says.
Still, I put the bag of figs back. I’m feeling like it’s not worth trying to save money if they’re going to go to waste.
She’s filling her cart. The fact is, she will go through the three-pack of brownie mix and the huge bag of walnuts and all the rest because she does entertain and cook and sometimes share with family and the neighbors. She, like so many, lives bigger than I do in that way. And she has a garage.
Still, my mother talks me into the 32-ounce bag of sliced almonds knowing I eat them every day on my yogurt.
“You know, I think I can find a place to store that,” I tell her, taking the bag from her.
It makes good sense, this purchase. I won’t be buying almonds again for the duration of time, but my mother is beaming. She’s getting me a deal on her little club card that she whips out at the register.
And I go back to Simple Town and dish up some mighty fine yogurt.
By Nancy Colasurdo
