Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Stand in the [Grocery Aisle]

I went grocery shopping by myself today - a hated task. Although I love to eat, I don't so much love to shop for food. Especially as I don't have access to my world-class grocery anymore. Waaaaah.

I couldn't resist - while I was walking by the yogurt/dairy, I looked at prices. Yoplait was 10/$5 - as low as it gets. It reminded me of when I lived in a certain complex when I was at University and six girls shared one fridge. At least two of them would buy about twenty individual yogurts when they went on sale and then there would be no room in the fridge for anything else. These were girls who had seen their mothers buy on the economy scale for their entire lives - at what other university would you see an industrial sized bottle of minced garlic on the door of the fridge? I ask you.

The overcrowding due to the yogurt required every person to shuffle her foodstuffs. Some girls took more than their fair share of fridge space. For the first few days after the yogurt trip was made, when you first glanced in the fridge all you could see was gallons of milk and Key Lime Pie yogurt all over. In the morning I had to play the "milk game" which was like one of those puzzles that has one empty piece and the rest are numbered and you have to get 1-8 all in a row by moving them around. Heaven help you if your milk was in the back of the fridge for too long, because it would get frozen. But I digress.

In the aisle, I stood, looking at the choices left to me. At school, Key Lime was all the rage, with the occasional Orange Creme, or on a decadent day, chocolate whip. When you went to the grocery store, all that was left was blueberry and harvest peach during the yogurt megasales. Here, there's no harvest peach, just blueberry and Key Lime Pie. It made me laugh - the culture I'm from really does love its sugar. Just goes to show that there are still regional differences. But in some cases, the more things change, the more they stay the same: blueberry yogurt still comes in last place. I took pity on it and bought two servings. Just so I could be reminded of the old days when fridge space was at a premium - to make me grateful for all the things I have now.

So thanks, blueberry yogurt, for being a constant. So long, Key Lime, you're out of favor. Harvest Peach, you're always imitation, so I'll leave you for the cleanup crew.

2 comments:

Maren said...
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Maren said...

Potter Magee's favorite flavor is Blueberry. Always. It is his treat of choice when we go grocery shopping together. Once he was forced to choose between fruit snacks and Blueberry-flavored yogurt. Yogurt won!!