Priorities.

I feel like lately the majority of my posts have started out with an apology for my absenteeism. So, to mix things up, I don’t have any apologies today. I’ll simply say, I would have rather been blogging. I promise you.

I hate blogging out of sequence; it feels like ridiculous time travel. But, this story is from last week.

Anyhoo, one evening last week I had a sudden and immediate need for two things: Doritos and Sour Patch Kids. I feel like the word “craving” doesn’t properly describe my immediate food needs. A craving sounds like something that might just pass with time, or it could even be confused with hunger in general. This was a need, and virtually impossible to ignore. After seven years the live in knows the drill. From the time the need is communicated we’ve got about 10 minutes to get the goods before things turn really ugly.

He grabs some cash, shoves it in my pocket, and we make the three block walk to Safeway.

Once inside I head straight for the snack aisle and he wanders off down another aisle. I grab the Doritos {Cool Ranch – they were out of my fav, Salsa Verde} and then grab the Kids, and head back to find the live in. And I found him…with a shopping cart full of fruit, and milk, and other day to day needs. I looked in my pocket – he had grabbed $7.00. I looked down at the Doritos - $2.49. I looked down at the Sour Patch Kids - $2.49 {of course I got the extra-large size}. I did the math. I looked at his groceries. I was mad.

He ushers me over to the self-check out aisle and basically says let’s see how much everything adds up to. Not embarrassing at all, by the way. So I ring up the Doritos – my first priority. Then my Kids. Then his three precious oranges. We were already over our $7.00 budget. He tells me to take off one of the oranges. Again, not embarrassing at all. {Deleting produce items at the self-check out isn’t exactly easy either.} We were still over the limit. So – and this still hurts – he tells me to take off the Kids. I delete it, he grabs the smaller pack instead, and we make our budget. Keep in mind he still had bananas, milk, and one orange he had to go return to the shelves.

I am pretty sure the Safeway employee who was manning the self-check out station was judging our nutritional priorities when she saw the Doritos and Kids make the cut, but the milk and fruit had to be returned.

Oh well…she probably wouldn’t understand the live in and all of his fine qualities either…