Shopping list

Peggy's prompt--Shopping list




I remember my mother giving me a shopping list and sending me one block down the sidewalk from our house to the Piggly Wiggly grocery store. to pick up a few things. It was usually just to pick up a few things that we used a lot of—bread, eggs, oleo (margarine to most of you), and sometimes vanilla wafers. I’d beg to get Cokes also, and she’d remind me that I would have to carry them all the way home. To get a Coke (one 6-oz in a heavy green bottle) I was willing to carry a 6-pack carton in one hand and the other groceries in a sack in the other arm. The sack wasn’t heavy, and the Cokes weren’t either, for about the first half block. During the rest of the block I stopped every five feet, placed the Coke carton on the ground, switched arms with the grocery sack (being very careful not to jiggle the eggs—Mama checked them as soon as I got home), and lifted the Coke carton by its narrow metal handle to the other hand. By the time I got home I had ridges in both palms, was sweaty and thirsty, and dying for that Coke. Mama would put three or four big ice cubes in an iced tea glass, pour half the six ounce Coke into it, hand it to me, and drink the rest out of the bottle herself. Yeah, times were tough back in the day, when three ounces of Coke was considered a treat worth suffering for.



But the experience did teach me the value of a list. Because if you came home without something Mama wanted, back you went to the store for the item you forgot. I got really good at checking the list. Maybe twice.



And I’ve been a lister ever since. I started with Christmas wish lists, gleaned from a thorough perusal of the Sears and Roebuck Christmas Catalog, which in those days arrived right after Halloween. (Not the day after Labor Day.) And graduated to lists for school—homework assignments, mostly. By high school it was more like a calendar of school deadlines—test on Friday in Trigonometry, paper due in English on Monday, last day of school next Friday, you remember, right?



By college I had diversified my lists. I had the school lists—assignments, tests, papers due. I had my personal lists—buy Tampax, look for used book for Embryology, write letter home, iron, birthday card for Sherry, REMEMBER LAUNDRY!



Sometime during the many years of college and graduate school, I graduated to TO DO lists—combining most to-do’s into one long list, with maybe the groceries separated on the sheet. I began to really like the feeling of slashing a big fat line through an item on the list that actually got done. When the items on the list were mostly all crossed out, I’d start another list, and transfer the not-done items to the top of the new list. Sometimes the same nagging to-do would appear at the top of the list for weeks, or maybe months. Get the oil changed in the car. Make a budget. Write down ideas for dissertation topics. Get haircut. Those really felt good when they got crossed off.



After I finished the PhD and went to work at FAMU’s Laboratory School as a “research coordinator”, I quickly discovered that there was no way to keep everything on one list. So I had one list of major projects, and then each project had a list. These lists stayed at work. My home lists went back to being just personal things, groceries, household tasks, birthday gifts and such. I kept a separate calendar for events—party on Saturday, meeting with so-and-so next Wednesday, Daddy’s birthday, Mama’s birthday, etc. This was getting complicated, but I had to admit it was easier that trying to keep all those things in my memory.



By the time I became an Assistant Dean, and had a pocket paper calendar, a calendar on my computer, a secretary who kept up with my scheduled meetings, a daily TO-DO list, sticky notes everywhere—all around the edge of my computer, the edges of my desk—I sometimes walked across campus with two or three of these sticky notes in my hand so I wouldn’t forget to stop by the Dean’s office, or the library, or the bookstore. For a long time I resisted a beeper, insisting that I could manage just fine without one, but after the Dean called to speak to me and my admin asst didn’t know where I was, not being able to decipher my sticky notes and TO-DO lists and computer scheduler, I was persuaded to carry a beeper.



Now I’m retired. I keep a grocery list going on the door of the refrigerator. I have a couple of to-do lists that I run into every once in a while and add to or mark off. I have a paper pocket calendar that I keep appointments in. And a few sticky notes. I’m weaning myself back to less list-y times. Unfortunately, as I get older, the need for lists and other reminders grows as my memory recedes. I try, though, to use other kinds of reminders instead of lists to help me remember to do things. Like putting my morning pills in the path I have to take to the bathroom. Like putting the laundry basket fill of clothes in full view outside the washer. Like putting my to-do list on the edge of the made-up bed where I’ll pass by it a million times a day. Like putting the bills to pay online stacked up in front of the computer. And I still forget things. I look right at the laundry basket and don’t notice it. I type away at the computer, never seeing the bills in front of me. I accidentally kick the morning pills out of the way and then wonder why there’s a full glass of water just sitting there by itself.



But somehow I get by, only occasionally forgetting something really important, like an appointment to meet someone. Just think what my life would be like if I went completely list-free. I’d never do anything. Out of sight, out of mind.