Write about a less-than-remarkable aspect of your life.
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For some reason, my husband and I are incapable of doing our grocery shopping on any day of the week other than Sunday. I always think that this week will be different. It goes at the top of my to-do list. I even will sometimes put together a preliminary grocery list on Saturday mornings, which makes me feel all warm and fuzzy and organized. (Can you tell I’m a list-driven person?)
Inevitably, however, life gets in the way and Saturdays are somehow completely filled up with other errands, outings with friends, yardwork, SOMETHING. And then Sunday rolls around again and suddenly it is Monday tomorrow and there’s nothing for it but to do all the mundane food shopping NOW before you’re out of free time.
This would be fine, in theory … if it wasn’t for the fact that it seems all of Austin has the same Sunday shopping routine. Everyone else in town apparently has the same issues with weekend procrastination that I do. HEB is like a giant game of bumper cars on a Sunday afternoon. Sometimes I have to pick and choose the aisles I’m going to go down based on how many bodies are currently occupying them. I’ll even go down the next one over and circle back to the far end of the aisle if it looks like I’ll never get through the middle without running over a small child or impatient and confused-looking male. The self checkout lanes snake through the entire produce section. And I’m occasionally reduced to digging in the back of the milk fridge, praying that someone accidentally lodged the last gallon of skim somewhere behind the two-percent.
My HEB is a funny place. They’ve taken to having two guitarists, one at either door. They sing and play as you enter. It’s a strange contrast to the mass of cart-pushing humanity that teems around them. And they always seem unaware of it. Lost in their music or bored beyond all thought, I’m not sure which. Unfortunately, that moment of serenity doesn’t last. It’s rather like that last arctic blast of air conditioning before you venture out into a Texas summer. One big tease before the descent.
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