Skip to main content

What's in your grocery bag?



   I may be a registered Democrat but I’ve got to file a complaint against Michelle Obama’s obesity campaign.
   There aren’t a whole lot of people on the planet who don’t know that celery is a better snack than say, a marshmallow. We also know that a trip to the farmer’s market is better for us than a trip to the 7-11.
   I’ve got to tell Michelle that I can buy 8 boxes of mac and cheese for the same price as a bag of romaine. I can buy 10 cans of corn for 5 bucks and 10 ears of fresh corn for the same price. Which option is going to stretch further?
   I’d love to be able to go to any store and buy organic fresh food. I can’t. I go to the store with my budget in mind because that’s how you shop in the real world.
   As far as “Let’s Move!” is concerned, if I felt like moving at the end of my work day, believe me I would. It’s hard to get up and exercise after you’ve spent all day at a job where you make $500 a week and your grocery bill for your family will eat almost half of that, not to mention the rest of your bills.
   I’m sure the world would be a better place if we all just took her advice. I’m sure the world would be a better place if we all could take her advice. Believe me, a lot of us would love to but we just can’t.
   We’re supposed to think it’s charming that some of the first family’s clothes come from GAP or J. Crew. I just looked up J. Crew and a simple dress – misty fog floral shift dress – costs $198.00. Really? That’s great first family. Now I can really relate to you. I can relate to you and Kim Kardashian.
   We’re living in a time where the flashiest most expensive thing is the most coveted. A place where our appliances must be stainless steel and our cars should hold 12 people and include a back-up camera. We watch Honey Boo Boo’s mom laugh all the way to the bank – and I think Mama June has more sense than most of the executives at her network. 
   Our daughters wonder how they’ll land a boyfriend who looks like Justin Bieber and our sons want to wear $50 hoodies while they look for Miley Cyrus or Selena Gomez.
   I watch the HGTV channel. I see the couples shaking their heads in disdain over the lack of a second walk-in closet. I see how upset they are that there’s carpet on the bedroom floor when they prefer hardwoods. Seriously, this is important?
   There’s a significant portion of the planet that digs through garbage for food and anything else they can find to help them survive. That’s where my problem with Michelle comes into play. Unless you can develop a real solution that translates into the real world, I’d rather you continue browsing your J. Crew catalogue. I hope you find a really great sweater to go with your slacks. And God forbid they look like mom jeans. 


Love conquers all things except poverty and toothache. – Mae West

Comments

Deb said…
Do you have an Aldi nearby? I buy fresh spinach there every week, then corrupt it by plastering it between layers of "cheeze food" on preservative-riddled, white spongy bread. Makes me feel all healthy and noble. "What's in MY grocery bag?" Crap - delicious, delicious crap...and plenty of it.
January 19, 2014 at 11:57 AM
Unknown said…
There's no Aldi's within reach. Catie keeps me posted on their best deals! We eat a lot of cheese food too. Delicious on canned peas I bet.
January 20, 2014 at 8:15 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I Like to Call Them Ow-Bows

   It’s a toss-up. Do I write about the fact that if you search “jobless goddess” in Google the dairy goddess and the library goddess come way ahead of me, or do I write about the fact that my husband is incapacitated due to a broken elbow? I guess I’ll go with the broken elbow. Besides, who the hell breaks their elbow anyway? My husband of course.    It started out innocently enough. I, in my desire to lose weight and become the wrinkly, thinner woman I was meant to be, decided we should start up the morning walks again. I prodded him while he was still under the covers. “Come on, let’s do it. You know we have to do this,” I said while tugging on my really sexy yoga pants (which, by the way, never get used for yoga).    To his credit, he got up, pulled on his pajama pants and went with me. We got about a 16 th of a mile past the driveway before he landed in the gravel. I’m talking a bed of gravel. Gravel embedded in the palm of your hand. Gravel ...
2 comments
Read more

He sells sea shells, I wish

   So now rather than being obsessed with fake fingernails I can’t afford, I’m becoming obsessed with checking this blog. I’m pretty sure all 52 views were made by either me or my husband.   That leads me right into the current situation at hand. We need friends. We’re desperate for them. I’ve started handing out my telephone number to people I meet while doing my meager freelance work. They think it’s for the story I’m writing but really it’s in hope that someday they’ll find a reason to call and then I can hit them with, “By the way, do you play cards? Bingo? Gin Rummy?” If I wasn’t so arthritic I’d throw Twister in there.    It’s not so much for me, it’s my husband who likes to have people around. I have become hermit-like since moving here while he has become convinced we could die here and not be found for months. He had friends back in Syracuse but he chose to stay home at night with his loving wife. Now all of a sudden I get the impression he’d h...
6 comments
Read more

Parish the Thought

     I love small towns. When I lived in Parish, New York, there was no end to the reverie, not to mention the constant parades.      We had a Halloween parade through town featuring people of all ages marching in costume along a rather abbreviated parade route. It all culminated at the fire barn where a couple of old draft horses would pull along a hay wagon. Most all town festivities featured the fire barn.       Monday night bingo held there. The caller was a volunteer firefighter prone to bringing on fits of laughter when he drew N 44…which he pronounced as "N farty-far," whereby producing great gales of cackling from the middle-aged women who showed up every week, I think maybe just to flirt with the caller and the other male volunteers who collected their money. Don't get me wrong, I'm not making fun. I spent more than a few Monday nights there myself.      The gas stations served as restaurants in Parish. You...
2 comments
Read more