Since my daughter got her driver's license, I no longer omit ingredients from recipes or don't make a recipe because I don't have all the ingredients. My daughter is my errand runner and shopper. It's a win-win, she gets out of the house and gets to drive with her radio blasting and I accomplish tasks without leaving the house.
This all sounds awesome and great until I realized the importance of explicit communication. Remember that game we played when we were young - a sentence is told to the first person who has to memorize it and whisper it to the next person and so on until the final person repeats what they heard - which is never exactly what was said in the beginning.
Here's our mother-teenage daughter version of the game. I needed cilantro. (I usually have it in my garden but it wasn't doing well, so I pulled it and hadn't planted any new seeds.) I sent my daughter to the store. I wrote cilantro on the list along with a couple of other basic items. From the store, my daughter texts me "cilantro leaves"? Yes, I reply, thinking the grocer got fancy with his signage.
When she got home, she handed me the receipt and started putting the groceries away. I noticed on the receipt that she paid $7.19 for cilantro. WHAT?!?! How much cilantro did she buy (typically it's $.39 a bunch)? She hands me the glass jar of "dried cilantro leaves".
I didn't say Fresh Cilantro. I didn't say Cilantro in the Produce section. I said Cilantro and she went to the baking aisle and grabbed the spice jar. Who would havwe thought?
The cilantro story happened a few months ago. Two weeks ago I had foot surgery that has limited me drastically - no driving, no walking any great distance, only being up in 15 minute increments. I'm down. I thought of this incident as I was making my Thanksgiving shopping list, realizing that I couldn't be that specific on that many items and have my daughter or (sigh) my husband, do the shopping for me. I had to go. But how?
The answer: use the motorized cart.
My daughter drove me to the store and dutifully pushed the cart behind me as I sunk into the seat and motored ever so slowly through the store. We made it through and bought everything we needed for our fest. I didn't run anyone over, people were courteous and lots of people had "I know the feeling" stories to share. Yet the more time we spent in the market, my head was down, I was slightly embarrassed and humbled by this experience, I won't be riding in the motorized cart anytime soon.
Slowing down, paying attention, being organized and being specific has it's rewards - our groceries subtotal was $197.81 - by slowing down, paying attention, being organized and being specific - I reduced by bill by $79.67 with card, coupons and bonus coupons! Whoop!
The motorized cart helped me with the shopping, but it isn't going to get the feast on the table in my limited condition. I need to come up with that plan...but that is for the next posting.
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