How to Eliminate Unsightly Stains

One of my kids, who shall remain nameless, likes to say, “You wanna know what really bugs me?” When I remember my parental responsibility to try to raise happy,  productive, contributing citizens--and also because I know it really bugs her-- I respond with something along the lines of, “Sure. But you also need to tell me three things that make you really happy.” In light of that sage advice, I will without further ado relate Three Things That Make Me Really Happy About Grocery Shopping:

1. food
2. the really swinging tunes they have playing
3. food

That was actually harder than I thought.

What really gets me about the grocery store is not the conundrum of balancing the disparate requirements of finding nutritious yet inexpensive food items, while catering to the varying taste preferences of each member of the household.  Neither is it the challenge of making sure that we don’t run out of staples such as Strawberry milk powder and croutons, while making sure not to overburden our tiny pantry. It’s not even the fact that grocery stores are designed to trick you into buying certain items--frankly I could always use help making decisions. Nor is it the fact that at least once during every excursion into the grocery store, I have to find someone taller than me (which is almost anyone, including some children) to help me reach something on the top shelf. What really bugs me about grocery shopping is the blatant and ridiculous inefficiency of the process.

Think about it: Food off the shelf and into the cart; food out of the cart and onto the conveyor belt; food off the conveyor belt and into bags and then back into the cart; food back out of the cart --still in bag--and into the car; food back out of the car--still in the bags--and into the house; food (finally) back out of the bags and into the fridge or pantry. Can you imagine anything else being this kind of inefficient? Government for example...oh wait. Never mind. Childbirth for example? People simply would not stand for it. There must be a better way (Although I would kind of miss the swinging tunes.)

However, until someone invents drive-through grocery stores with online ordering, or a system of underground tunnels connected to vending machines in each home, we don’t have many choices. It’s time to get efficient. Yet somehow, when in the name of Efficiency (which my children have slanderously labeled Laziness), I roll out my picnic blanket in the middle of aisle 12 and just start chowing on peanut butter and jam--with a bottle of strawberry milk--right off the shelves, you would not believe the foofaraw (look it up) this causes. It’s not like I don’t have money with me--cash, no less! You’d think the store manager would be more understanding, or at least more supportive of cutting down on the wastage of plastic bags. 

What else can we do? Let’s get creative, Kids. Our precious time is being frittered away with this disorganized and unproductive system. Fix this mess, and there is a whole universe of problems to devote our time and energy to solving: world hunger, melting glaciers, gray axillary stains, toasters that always burn one side of the bread, plastic wrap that sticks to itself, cable news networks, muzak: the list goes on and on.