In other words, it has now been exactly seven days since I've had any amount of edible food in the house, and because I should really be rectifying that situation, I'm sitting here blogging about it instead. Because talking about something is sort of halfway doing it, right?
So I hate going to the grocery store. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against the institution itself. It's full of smells and colors and textures and temperatures and all sorts of fun things to observe. If anything, it errs on the side of having too many wonderful things inside of it, so that I get a little overwhelmed. But still. As evidenced by this week, I'd rather grasp at any measure, no matter how thin, painful, or detrimental to my health rather than get in my car and go to the grocery store. I don't know why the act of going is so untenable to me, but it is. It is an obstacle. We'll just leave it at that.
But it really is a skill, I think, to continue to live despite not having any food. A modern-day survival skill, perhaps. I am the Castaway of 21st-century Suburbia. (I just realized how insensitive it might be to talk about this when there are people in the world who would give anything to be able to get in a car and go to a grocery store full of food. I feel kind of terrible now.)
Nevertheless, I'm pretty talented. And as I sat in my house, once again engaging in the familiar grocery-store avoidance scheme, I decided to compile a list. Because lists are things I like to compile. Especially when I should be going to the grocery store.
How To Avoid Going to the Grocery Store and Still Live
1) Fast food.
But wait. It may sound like the easy way out (for you, not your heart), but there's a catch. In order to rely on fast food for sustenance, you have to compensate by reducing the number of meals you eat in a day. Otherwise, the mountain of crushing guilt will kill you before the calories even get a chance.
If you can handle this, then it's ok to get hooked on Wendy's chicken nuggets and for them to be the only thing you feel like eating for the next one week to three months.*
2) Cook weird things.
But be warned - this tactic is not for the faint of heart. It typically results in the kind of homespun recipes that are not worth eating. (Taco Sauce Noodles? Please. I think I got maybe three spoonfuls down before I threw the rest out.)
3) Live somewhere relatively near family. Preferably family that have pantries. If they are in a one-day round-trip driveable distance, this is acceptable.
Anyway, I was invited to a bridal shower. Did I consider not going because I was high on a half-dose of over-the-counter motion sickness meds? Heck, no. Not only was my dear friend about to get married, but I had had nothing but brownies and cupcakes to eat for two days.
(Back story: my roommate and I both went on a baking frenzy independently but simultaneously, and so, while I had no real food in the house, there were Tupperware containers upon Tupperware containers of baked goods. Sounds awesome, but you can only eat, like, one cupcake before you want to vomit, and then it's like being shipwrecked for two days - water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink. Plus between all the sugar rushes and crashes, my metabolism was starting to feel like a bad day at the stock exchange.)
So away I went to the bridal shower, bearing a collapsible colander and a craving for real food.
*Re: the obsession with Wendy's chicken nuggets. I do this with food a lot. I get stuck on something, and it's all I want to eat. I just came off a three-month jag of peanut butter and strawberry sandwiches. And the only reason I stopped eating them was because I could no longer sustain the weekly grocery trips that a diet of fresh fruit requires. Sad, I know.
Note: In the drawings comparing the distance from my house to the grocery store and the distance from my house to my grandparents', I wasn't exaggerating. I live directly across the street from a grocery store. Which only makes this whole thing more ridiculous.
A Second Note: I'm feeling wordy today.
A Third Note: I realized, reading through this, that I fixate on phrases just as often as I fixate on foods. Like "In other words." I seem to love that one. I use it all the time. But that's ok, because like a peanut butter and strawberry sandwich, it just tastes so darn good.
An Addendum to the Third Note: I also fixate on analogies. Or rather, the act of likening one thing to another. I mean, really. I do it practically every other sentence.
An Addendum to the Second Note, Which Should Really Have Been Written Directly After the Second Note, but Which Makes More Sense Right Here Where I've Written It, So I'm Leaving it Here: I'm also feeling obsessive today.
A Fourth Note: :)
But it really is a skill, I think, to continue to live despite not having any food. A modern-day survival skill, perhaps. I am the Castaway of 21st-century Suburbia. (I just realized how insensitive it might be to talk about this when there are people in the world who would give anything to be able to get in a car and go to a grocery store full of food. I feel kind of terrible now.)
Nevertheless, I'm pretty talented. And as I sat in my house, once again engaging in the familiar grocery-store avoidance scheme, I decided to compile a list. Because lists are things I like to compile. Especially when I should be going to the grocery store.
How To Avoid Going to the Grocery Store and Still Live
1) Fast food.
But wait. It may sound like the easy way out (for you, not your heart), but there's a catch. In order to rely on fast food for sustenance, you have to compensate by reducing the number of meals you eat in a day. Otherwise, the mountain of crushing guilt will kill you before the calories even get a chance.
If you can handle this, then it's ok to get hooked on Wendy's chicken nuggets and for them to be the only thing you feel like eating for the next one week to three months.*
2) Cook weird things.
But be warned - this tactic is not for the faint of heart. It typically results in the kind of homespun recipes that are not worth eating. (Taco Sauce Noodles? Please. I think I got maybe three spoonfuls down before I threw the rest out.)
3) Live somewhere relatively near family. Preferably family that have pantries. If they are in a one-day round-trip driveable distance, this is acceptable.
4) Stock up on leftovers. Especially when someone else (i.e. Dad) is paying.
A corollary: in times of plenty, refrain from throwing out a box of leftovers just because it's a few days old. Leave it there. In another few days, you won't have so much food lying around, and you'll be glad you didn't turn your nose up at it. If it's a little stale or fridge-hardened, that's fine; microwaves work miracles. However, if it smells or looks funny, do not eat it. I'm not encouraging anybody to willfully contract food poisoning. Even I'm not that stubborn.
5) Don't be picky.
Yes, we still have that ant problem. Yes, we really have stopped caring whether they're in our food or not.
And all of that brings me to this past weekend, and my final survival skill/tip for never going to the grocery store/way to live more like a college student than you ever did when you were in college.
6) If you're invited, go.
This past weekend, I had been given a new medication by a doctor. Before you get the wrong idea again, I am not a hypochondriac or a walking pharmacy. I've just been really dizzy lately, in the queasy motion-sick kind of way, and so I went to the doctor to be sure I didn't have a brain tumor (no conclusive evidence either way, but my sinuses are more likely the culprit), and he said "take this stuff and see if it helps." So I did. On the plus side, I wasn't dizzy, but I did feel incredibly medicated. Super loopy, that was me. And I have to admit, I kind of enjoyed it.
Anyway, I was invited to a bridal shower. Did I consider not going because I was high on a half-dose of over-the-counter motion sickness meds? Heck, no. Not only was my dear friend about to get married, but I had had nothing but brownies and cupcakes to eat for two days.
(Back story: my roommate and I both went on a baking frenzy independently but simultaneously, and so, while I had no real food in the house, there were Tupperware containers upon Tupperware containers of baked goods. Sounds awesome, but you can only eat, like, one cupcake before you want to vomit, and then it's like being shipwrecked for two days - water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink. Plus between all the sugar rushes and crashes, my metabolism was starting to feel like a bad day at the stock exchange.)
So away I went to the bridal shower, bearing a collapsible colander and a craving for real food.
There was a table full of finger foods on one end of the kitchen, and platter full of petit-fours on the other. I felt like I was going against the tide.
But I didn't care. It was the only meal I was likely to eat that day, so I was shameless.
Like James Bond, I live to die and/or go to the grocery store another day.
*Re: the obsession with Wendy's chicken nuggets. I do this with food a lot. I get stuck on something, and it's all I want to eat. I just came off a three-month jag of peanut butter and strawberry sandwiches. And the only reason I stopped eating them was because I could no longer sustain the weekly grocery trips that a diet of fresh fruit requires. Sad, I know.
Note: In the drawings comparing the distance from my house to the grocery store and the distance from my house to my grandparents', I wasn't exaggerating. I live directly across the street from a grocery store. Which only makes this whole thing more ridiculous.
A Second Note: I'm feeling wordy today.
A Third Note: I realized, reading through this, that I fixate on phrases just as often as I fixate on foods. Like "In other words." I seem to love that one. I use it all the time. But that's ok, because like a peanut butter and strawberry sandwich, it just tastes so darn good.
An Addendum to the Third Note: I also fixate on analogies. Or rather, the act of likening one thing to another. I mean, really. I do it practically every other sentence.
An Addendum to the Second Note, Which Should Really Have Been Written Directly After the Second Note, but Which Makes More Sense Right Here Where I've Written It, So I'm Leaving it Here: I'm also feeling obsessive today.
A Fourth Note: :)
I'm so going through this right now. Hahaha.
ReplyDelete::sigh:: So am I.
ReplyDelete