Brocolli Wockolli

By Patricia Parkinson

Written after talking to a friend on my cell phone while grocery shopping.



Today we talked on the phone while I did my grocery shopping. I felt like you were with me, walking next to me. If we really were together, I think I'd keep bumping into your heels with my cart. I have a feeling you're one to stop in the middle of an aisle when something catches your eye, while I, I am the type of shopper that likes to centralize my buggy between various departments eliminating the need to push it altogether. I like to stroll and pose and touch things and pretend I'm at Saks 5th Ave. or Tiffany's and I'm really not Patricia Parkinson, I'm Audrey Hepburn. This is my grocery shopping style.

The only draw back to this style, are the times, all the time actually, when I forget which department I left the cart in. Panic hits. Did I leave it in the feminine hygene aisle? No, I wouldn't leave it there. At age forty-five, the fear of running into a cute guy while holding a box of kotex pads remains. It could however, be in the meat department. There's something about hanging out with raw meat that's very primal. I poke at my meat. Sometimes I break the plastic wrap and get blood on my finger which brings on panic of the ecoli variety, and yet, there's nothing like mixing hamburger with my bare hands - hamburger and raw eggs - The feeling of the cold meat squishy between my fingers forming it into a meatloaf or rolling it between my palms into balls. It's likely my buggy could be found in the meat section.

On occasion when I lose track of my grocery cart and it's no where to be found and I've drifted off course to the far end of the deli section where dolmades float in extra virgin olive oil and I realise I've drifted far past the allowable time of leaving my cart unattended and now a stock boy is ununpacking what has taken me what seems like forever to find back onto the shelves meaning I have to start shopping all over again. I will have to decide, Corn Pops or Froot Loops? Ragu or Classico? Sweet Basil or Red Wine? Crowns, or Brocolli Wockly? The thought of having to do it all over again is to much for a woman nearing menopause to take.

And then I think when I'm standing there, carrying three jugs of milk with my purse strap threatening to slip past the bone at the end of my shoulder, that I do these things on purpose, I create this panic, and then I think, PP, you lead an awfully boring life where the only excitement you get is the thought of having to re-grocery shop.

I needed to change my shopping style and talking to you today, having to pause and not butt up against your heels, but stop and look at the food, maybe buy a papaya or a bag of lentils. Next week, I'll call from the new Safeway. They have a great deli, fabulous rice salad and a Starbucks, which, well, is odd since everyone knows it's impossible to push a buggy with one hand and drink a coffee with the other unless you have the worlds perfect buggy, of which there are none. So, I have to get my coffee at the end of the trip when I have raw meat and cold cuts which does not fit into the implanted vision of drinking coffee outside at one of those tables with uneven legs, pretending I'm her, Aud, as I prefer to call her, Aud, it fits don't you think?. So, if I call you from this store, I can only buy non parishables, unless, well, bananas would be okay, and I'll sit outside at a table looking over the parking lot while talking to you on the phone, like we're really together, and I'll try to remember where I parked my car.