Do you want help?

I am having a mental battle with grocery shopping. First, I am spending more money on fuel for the vehicle than I am on what I am eating. How can this be? The snow is off the ground so I will get the scooter out and put on long underwear and reduce the cost as much as I can. That is not the grocery store issue. I have been looking at the grocery store displays regarding the “ bring your own bag or buy the bag” offered so that we can get out of using plastic. We get the newspaper at the house so one of the dog walk events can be captured in the blue bag (my preference) but when the grocery bags are eliminated; this will result in an additional expense. My friend Joe has a tin can pooper scooper for his midget dogs, but he has not picked up after Lady Phoebe who is neither small nor tidy in her droppings. I shop in the most upscale and suburban grocery store. It just got the national award as the mostest groceryest store in the USA. It is surrounded by affluent and prolific yuppie families most of whom use the largest cart in the store and then have it heaping over with their dinner party and family foods. I put my $35 worth of veggies, fruit, bread and yogurt into a small cart and most of it, except the green packets (2 for $5) go in the part where the child should be sitting. It comes to three plastics only because the rule at the store is five or less in a bag. I took some time yesterday to really check out the carts. Only one very distinguished gentleman with grey hair and a mustache (reminding me of my grand father in age and dignity) had the same as I. The rest were getting a power gym work out just pushing the cart around the store. I didn’t even see large bags of dog food, just meat and produce and can goods. As I walked past the long lines for regular groceries on my way to express, I lingered at the check out counter to find out is Jake is nicer to Reese than whatever her ex’s name was. I watched as the check out person but the stuff in the bags. No way was this multiple hundreds of dollars worth of stuff going into canvas bags. Folks were looking at me with a cautious eye since I was “hanging out” and I watched the Mom move her purse to the other side. So I left before the final $ count or bag fillings. I went down to my row with a few men who also appear to live alone and are on fixed incomes. I always smile at my healthy gatherings: 2 baguettes, yogurt, silk milk, cheese, and veggies and yep – three bags and $37. What happened next put me into another place. As I swiped my card, I thought I was mistaken, so I said, I am sorry, I did not hear you. And the nice cashier repeated, “can you carry the bags to the car or do you need help”? I wanted to rip open my clothing and display
my black belt and give her a chop in her young head. But being the nice catholic raised daughter of my always polite and nice Helen Mayer, I just said, “no thank you, not today” and left.