Foraging and Gathering
My former roommate Jim and I used to have a system for grocery shopping: on the first pass through the store, you could pick up anything for which we had a coupon (and we were fervent coupon cutters -- I know, odd for a couple of guys, but true); generics were also acceptable.
Second pass: Buy everything else we want/need.
We'd frequently throw things to one another, and not stopping with the soft stuff (i.e., bread); it wasn't uncommon to see a frozen pizza Frisbeed down an aisle or, more frightening, between aisles, in which cases we trusted the receiver to be or get into the right place at the right time.
Now, if you're the kind of person who can really project themselves into a situation, you might be wondering: how did you handle frozen foods picked up on the first pass? If you're going back through the store you don't really want to leave them in the cart to melt, right? We solved this problem by stashing all of our first-pass frozen goods somewhere random in the freezer section. This no doubt confused the hell out of a few fellow shoppers. "What the hey? Why are Mrs T.'s pierogies in the middle of Breyer's ice cream?"
After shopping, we'd go home and compare the length of our receipt to the longest we'd acquired so far (our record was over eight feet long, with a better than 25% savings due to coupons); we kept our record receipt on a corkboard in the dining room. Then we'd eat like kings for two days, go hungry for two weeks, and then shop again.
We had our system down in our then-favorite store (a Shop and Save, if memory serves); we once tried a "foreign" store (a rundown something-or-other in the area), with the result that we had about ten items in the cart at the end of the first pass, so we abandoned it (frozen goods and all) mid-aisle and went back to our home store.
In the 1960s, I went "crabbing" off one of the wrecks near Nags Head, North Carolina. Went with my husband and about five male pals of his, and we caught a slew of crabs. Back to the house, and of course, I got to cook and pick them. Now, looking back, I don't know why I was such a fool, but this was before women's lib educated me. I left the bowl of all this lovely, fresh crab meat in the fridge and went off to shower or something before dinner, and when I returned, the men had already polished it all off! I was not ladylike in telling them what I thought of their selfish, insensitive habits, and I've never picked a crab since.
Catherine S. Vodrey is available for freelance writing, editing, fundraising/development, and photography projects at:
Post Office Box 835
East Liverpool, Ohio 43920 USA
E-MAIL: WordBanquet@gmail.com
Thank you for visiting www.WordBanquet.com!