I hate the grocery store

I used to love going grocery shopping. It was 30-45 minutes of solitude, wandering through the aisles and picking up goodies here and there.

I could spend five minutes picking between brands of cookies. Do I want Oreo Double Stuffs, so I can screw the tops off and make Oreo Quadruple Stuffs (patent pending)? Or do I want those soft-batch cookies, which I know have to be laced with enough preservatives to keep Pam Anderson looking fresh for another century, but they taste oddly great?

I could peruse the chip section. Do I feel adventurous enough to try some of those new and exotic flavours of potato chips -- Steak N' Onion, Dill Pickle, Ketchup -- or do I just want the old standbys? Speaking of that, what is the point of Ketchup-flavoured chips? Couldn't you just eat fries and dip them in ketchup, and even just dip the chips in it? Is that too hard for some people?

Do I need some lunch meat? What's on sale in the deli? Liverwurst? Genoa salami? Macaroni and cheese loaf? Hell, give me a pound of each of them!

I never walked out without a 12-pack of soda, and maybe something dessertish from the day-old bin, and of course several loaves of bread which would go moldy before I got through the second.

I thought about all of this standing in the checkout line the other day. In my cart? Spinach, fat-free chicken and turkey breast, one loaf of whole-wheat bread, soy milk, egg whites, pretzels and some grapes. It barely made a dent in the huge cart I had pushed around. So why was it more than I used to spend when the cart was damned near full?

No matter. I still get the same number of meals out of it, and I don't feel like I'm wheeling my death around in front of me.