17. The First Couple Days After Grocery Shopping

Things were looking grim in the kitchen. I needed groceries.

I swear to you there is no better feeling than a full fridge. More divine than the sweetest of manna. I'm not sure how the rest of you roll, but I literally am spooning jam, eating ketchup packets, and mixing up dubiously purchased baby food before I'll admit to myself that I need groceries. So when I've been running on fumes in my kitchen for a week or two, the magic carpet ride (aka Ralph's) seems like Mecca itself.

When I grocery shop I literally go into a zen type of lucid meditation. I no longer acknowledge moronic people and nuisances, life goes quiet and I am alone with my thoughts.

"Pickles...fuck yeah!!!" seems to be my first message.

I returned home with armloads of groceries from meats to drinks, to frozen goods,and grains. Everything under the sun was now plucked, packaged and placed in my kitchen in easy-to-open packages.

I live alone so I constantly have sweat-inducing nightmares of my food going bad before I eat it. I also always purchase too much out of greed and bouts hedonistic gluttony. I'm stuck between a rock of value and the hard place of excessive supply. So there's nothing left to do but make myself eat a lot of the food in the first couple days to make myself feel better...it's a tough responsibility that I've bestowed unto myself.

It's just so great a feeling when you have exactly what you want when you want it. Even when you're fridge is pretty stocked, it's not the same. Your sandwich will invariably be missing one ingredient, like pepper jack cheese. And sure. your sandwich is pretty good, but you just can't get your mind off of that missing cheese. How good it would have been...how those peppers would dance a flavorful tango of lust with your taste buds. That would have been so good, that cheese. Sitting on that sandwich, cheesing it up. Cheese. Cheese. Cheese.

It's downright murder. You don't have those horrible feelings of frustration those first couple days after grocery shopping because everything is there. You might as well have two dinners, with dessert.




Name: Kitchen (+ pantry)
Genre: Gastronomy
Value: Dependent on ownership of Ralph's Club Card.
What You'll Need to Enjoy Your Meal: A fridge that won't run away