Off-List

When I go to the grocery store, I do things...
not dumb things...
not smart things...
nice things...
but not quite smart things.

I go with a List, a very specific List.  It tells me we need milk, juice, fruit snacks (for bribery missions), and some snacks for Aaron to take to work.

The grocery List is not Gospel - it's not always right.  Like the other day, I was at the store and I realized we had forgotten to put butter on the List.  I bought butter.  No worries.

What I'm saying is, there is some flexibility to the List. (discount Valentine's chocolates, I'm looking at you).

My husband knows this.  He knows that if I'm sent to the store to buy only the dinner ingredients, I'm going to come back with something else.  It might be milk that we forgot we needed.  It might be the ice cream he eats that night.  It might be rice pilaf he eats three days later.  It might be the quinoa that we kept in the pantry for about a year before we threw it out because we never eat quinoa.

No worries, there is flexibility to the List.

Tonight was an ad hoc grocery store run, to get the essentials we didn't buy two days ago.  I had a very specific List but this was, after all, the evening I had inflated the Big Red Exercise Ball I bought on a grocery run in early January - the ball that the kids promptly confiscated.  I'd like to use that ball before someone takes a ballpoint pen to it, like my last Big Red Exercise Ball   As I recall, that was not on the List either, a year and a half ago, but I bought it anyway and we enjoyed having it for the week before Sebastian found that ballpoint pen.  Life is full of little ironies.

Well, imagine my surprise when I walked into the grocery store and saw a big basket of balls for sale, with Avengers and Disney Fairies on them, built for actual toddlers to actually play with - I think Grocery List Flexibility is built for moments of serendipity like this.  Let's ignore the fact that I always feel that way when I walk into the store and I see something that wasn't on the List.   I put it in my basket, do the rest of the actual List shopping, and then, as I unload it at the register, the unwarranted purchase eats away at my insides and I debate whether to leave the merchandise with the cashier.  I don't think I've ever done that - I'm stronger than my gut instincts, you see.

Tonight, that gut instinct was quickly over-ridden because I would like my Big Red Exercise Ball, and I would like to keep the kids distracted enough that they will not write on it with a ballpoint pen.  These Avengers and Fairies balls were just the thing, I knew, as the cashier rang them up.  And they would go perfectly in my house and were big enough that my kids would feel like we all just had an exercise ball.  See this picture of my dog and the ball, for size comparison and to prove that each ball was a perfect purchase for my house:

It took three shots to get it right.  Madigan was not amused.   We also have assigned all the major Avenger characters to others in the family, so she has to be Nick Fury and we haven't bought her an eyepatch yet.  I think that's why she doesn't look so happy.  Nick Fury is not on this particular ball.

As I drove home, I debated what I would say to Aaron when he came out to help unload the groceries.  This was maybe a bit more impulsive than normal off-List purchases, and we have been talking recently about not adding to toys or spoiling the kids.  I knew I could try to be a hero with my first load - six bags of groceries - and he would find these in the car without my explanation, after note realizing what a hero I had been with those six other non-Avengers/Disney Fairies ball loads.  What would I say?  How could I avoid that?

I pulled into the driveway, grabbed my first load of groceries, then opened the front door like I was arriving in the middle of a stormy night in a mystery movie.  The door gave a somewhat satisfying bang and I saw the back of Aaron's head.  He was sitting in the living room.  I threw each of the balls into the living room, one at a time, without saying a word - Disney Fairies first, followed by the Avengers.  He looked at them for a moment, then went back to his business.  I took the rest of the groceries into the kitchen.

He hasn't said anything yet, but I know that he's silently amazed at my awesome Off-List grocery shopping skills, because both of the balls that bounced into the living room should have been on our list of basic grocery necessities.

When I go to the grocery store, I do things.  My husband thinks they're brilliant.