Bananas, peppers, milk, bread, coffee
Considering that they weren't on the list, it's a miracle that I even remembered to look for paper clips. And, if a person can be allowed two miracles in one day--even two lame ones--I'd go so far as to say it's a miracle that I actually found the paper clips.
HyVee, after all, isn't exactly in the paper-clip business.
But, most grocery stores--even smaller ones--have an aisle (or, more likely, a shelf or two) set aside for what might be called the widows and orphans--those odd things that, every couple of years or so, we need and hope to God we won't have to run to Menards or Office Depot to get. Think ream of paper, handful of screws, highlighters, and paper clips. Like Rudolph's island of misfits (er, make that aisle of misfits), it's an easy aisle to miss, which is why I was so pleased to find it yesterday.
Scanning the myriad oddities, I found three options--three!--for paper clips--jumbo, color-coated and standard. Settling on the standards, an odd thing happened when I grabbed the box of 200. Immediately, I had the strangest feeling that this would be the very last time in my life that I would buy paper clips. Ever.
Why, I wondered, would a box of paper clips cause me to have an existential moment, if not an actual full-blown crisis? What was it about these ordinary items that jarred loose the notion that I would not always be here?
I suspect that, had there been only 50 in the box, my life would not have flashed before my eyes. Likely, nothing would have flashed before my eyes, and I'd have scratched myself, yawned a bit and tossed them into my cart, zombie-like in my uncaring.
Apparently, 200 is my mortality-rate tipping point for paper clips. Which makes sense, if I generally use 5 a year, because I can't imagine myself as a 98-year-old person heading to HyVee to get some more.
Maybe this explains my lifelong resistance to big-box stores.
Most people love big-box stores for all those eye-popping savings wrapped up in mind-boggling quantities. I hate them, though. I always thought I hated them because they were big and crowded and it was weird to be able to buy trampolines and t-bones all in the same place. Now, though, I think maybe it's because big-box stores are overwhelming reminders that I'm going to die and there ain't no way I'll be able use 400 rolls of scotch tape between now and then!
Before heading to the checkout lane, I had a fleeting, secret longing. Safety pins! Rare and precious, I can recall only three safety pins that I've had in my house in the past 20 years. I have no idea how any of them came my way, but the two larger ones frequently accompanied me to work, holding together a gaping shirt or keeping closed another buttonless pair of pants, so that I might keep my job. I'd be hard pressed to find even one of those safety pins today.
Alas, HyVee doesn't carry safety pins. Thank goodness I'm so over caring about bulging button-ups and dysfunctional denims! Now, I've just got to be really careful these next thirty or so years.
No comments:
Post a Comment