Some Things You Just Can't Get at the Grocery Store

If you've ever gone grocery shopping with four children, you know the sort of comments such an adventure elicits.

"Are they all yours?"  


"Wow!  You've got your hands full!"  


"Bless your heart..." 


"I don't know how you do it."


Yeah, it gets old.

What you might not know, especially if your routine generally involves taking four children to the grocery store, is that a trip to the grocery store without children brings its own set of comments.  Recent gems include:

"You have enough in there to feed an army." (This said as a complete stranger peers into my shopping cart and I silently thank God that I'm not buying feminine hygiene products or anything of an equally delicate nature on this particular shopping excursion.)


"A bunch of people are going to run out of the house to help you unload those groceries, right?"


The givers of the comments above were both late-middle-aged people, apparently shopping for themselves alone, and were actually rather nice folks who didn't speak maliciously.  However rude it is to comment on the fullness of someone's shopping cart, neither was mean about it.  They simply pointed out that my cart was full...  even though it didn't seem all that full to me on either occasion.

I'll confess, though.  Um...  I can be a bit snarky now and then.  Maybe, just maybe, it crossed my mind to look into the cart of the next person who tells me how full my cart is, and say, "Aw, eating alone tonight?"  What better way to highlight how rude it is to comment on the contents of a fellow shopper's buggy?

But I don't think I'll ever do that.  You see, driving home from the store this past Saturday, I realized a few things, starting with the fact that a bunch of people would come running to help me unload the van.  I also realized that for me, a solo trip to the store is more a break from real life than it is an excursion into real life.  I don't go to the store for contact with other (adult) human beings.  I don't go for adventure or excitement.  I have ample adventure and excitement at home.  I go to the grocery store because we need food for all these mouths, and I go alone to enjoy the peace and quiet of a rare outing by myself.  (But mainly because we need food).  The store - this place bustling with people - is not the hub of life.  Home is the hub where everything exciting and marvelous and chaotic happens, and a wonderful hub it is.

Two blocks from home, when I realized that life -rich, crazy, busy, demanding, glorious life - was about to resume, all snarky thoughts of what I might say to the next person who told me I could feed an army melted into thankfulness for my little army, for the ability to feed them, and for the eagerness with which they would help unload the groceries.  (Ahem, the eagerness with which some of them would resign themselves to running bags of food to the back door and drop everything into one huge heap of food and plastic bags while others would take the opportunity of an open van door to plant themselves in the driver's seat and pretend to drive, but hopefully not push too many of the wrong buttons on the dashboard...)

I am thankful.  My crazy-full shopping cart, whatever anyone feels compelled to say about it and whatever it costs me at the checkout counter, is a gift.  And the reason it is so full...  this crazy-darling little army I'm feeding - is a greater gift, one you just can't find at a grocery store...

...Unless Geoff's not home, and I have to take them with me.