It was just a trip to Wal-Mart. To get the essentials. My intentions innocent. My motives pure.
Never mind that it was my third trip this week. Yes, I know we’re only supposed to be out and about for essential activity, but in these days of quarantining running low on chocolate chips counts as an essential activity in my book.
But really, my true need the prior two trips was for eggs. The first trip was actually a pick up order (see, I didn’t even get out of my car and risk contamination. Aren’t you proud, mom?). When I placed the order, they had the eggs. By the time they fulfilled the order, they no longer did. I waited over 30 minutes in my car for that pick up order and most definitely could have gone inside and gotten all I needed in a fraction of the time.
Still no eggs.
Determined not to make the pick up order mistake again, on the second trip I decided to take matters into my own hands and go get my darn eggs myself. Except that the Neighborhood Market looked like it had been ambushed during the apocalypse. No eggs to be found anywhere. But I did find a three pound pack of bacon, which I immediately snagged because what do you need while quarantining if not three pounds of bacon.
Still no eggs.
And y’all know I got to eat me some boiled eggs everyday. Just ask the student Ambassadors who work with me on campus. It’s one of their favorite traits of mine (said no one ever.)
So trip number three to the Wal-Marts took place this morning. I got up early so as to beat the crowds and increase the odds of securing my much needed eggs. And now butter. I needed butter too. Because baking requires butter and I see a lot of baking on my horizon now that my chocolate chip supply is back up to satisfactory numbers.
As I entered the store sans mask but keeping six feet away from anyone around me, it felt like one of those “this might be my last time ever” scenarios. You know the kind. Like the last day before you start a big diet, so you binge eat everything in sight because it’ll be the last time you’ll eat food with any flavor or fat for a while. That was what my gut was telling me as I descended upon the strangely calm and empty aisles of Wal-Mart at 7:00 AM.
I had secured many of the basics on my prior two trips and I really didn’t want to keep coming back. So as I made my rounds, I racked my brain for any and all things I might could possibly ever consider needing if a trip to the local Wal-Mart wasn’t in my near future. There were only five items on my original list: eggs, butter, canned mushrooms, a spice rack, and a toilet paper holder. Essentials, obviously.
Another bag of chocolate chips, five pounds of chicken breasts, a bag of shrimp, two cans of chicken, a gallon of milk, a pack of paper towels, four cups of mozzarella cheese, a container of UHT milk, a gallon of cold brew coffee, a new internet router, and $140 later I had safely secured the five items on my list plus other “essentials” and managed to spend over $250 in groceries for ONE PERSON in the last week.
But “this might be my last time ever” in a grocery store (for a while).
So I came home to stuff the food in my fridge and pantry only to realize I now have three bags of chocolate chips in my cabinet (one is espresso flavored - yum!), about four different cartons of eggs (Don’t judge: two are my roommates), enough flour to open my own cake bakery, coffee to last the next 90 days (definitely an essential!!), and chicken and shrimp and bacon and ground beef for dayyyyzz. Anyone who knows me even a little at all knows that “meat makes meals” (ie I rarely eat a meal that doesn’t have meat in it) and we gone need all that meat if I don’t get out this house for the next couple of weeks.
So some things happened at Wal-Mart this morning. And I’m not proud of it. Neither is my bank account.
Also, my dinner last night consisted of twelve homemade chocolate chip cookies (see now why my chocolate chip stash keeps running low?) and a glass of wine. I’m not proud of that either.
Life’s going great over here. Making solid life choices.
How’s life in the time of Corona going for you guys?