Dona E. Bowens

It’s the little things I notice about myself that are hard to reprogram. Take grocery shopping, for example. I’ll go to the store and buy ONE bottle of cranberry juice and TWO apples and I’ll skip buying lotion until my next trip to the market because liquids are the worst to carry…

…and there friends is the conundrum. My mind is still operating under the “only buy what you can carry” rule I lived under in Europe. And the same goes for Amazon. Because an Amazon truck stays parked outside my house, my neighbors must wonder if I ever step inside an actual brick and mortar store. Not if I can help it and not if I can avoid carrying whatever it is I bought. I bought a butt-load of toilet paper off of Amazon because 1) though toilet paper isn’t heavy, it is bulky to carry and 2) you’re always gonna need TP so might as well stock up.

I carry on as if I don’t have a car to load all my capitalist-consumer products into before driving home. I don’t know how to break myself of the “just one” hard-wiring I’ve developed. In the grocery store my mind thinks 2 meals ahead at best. “I’ll pick up a packet of drumsticks and make BBQ chicken tonight and for tomorrow I think I’ll have pasta.” And that’s all I’ll buy. Then I’ll find myself back in the store 2 days later repeating the process all over again because shopping according to what I can carry is my default position despite my car being parked right outside the Giant Eagle.

I might need a remedial course in consumerism because, between my four jobs, I don’t have time to spend every other day in the grocery store buying carrots two at a time. I thought getting a BJ’s membership would jolt me into consuming in bulk again but all I did was stand in front of the poultry case and ask myself, “When will I have time to breakdown 4 chickens.” BJ’s does sell Spanish jamon in what I guess they consider a “bulk” package. Pfft! That jamon didn’t last a week at my house. If you’re gonna sell jamon in bulk, give me the whole goddamn leg! (Christmas is coming. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge)

I’ll know I’m healed of my “Just One” grocery shopping malady when one day, hopefully sooner rather than later, I’ll waltz into the Acme and just start throwing stuff into the cart with wild abandon. “Ohhhhhh looky there. Fifty-five gallons of bottled water. I’ll take 5 please!” Then I’ll know I’m cured because in Europe, I NEVER bought bottled water because who wants to carry that shit? Not me!