Even when life gets complicated, there’s always a little humour in it.
It was only a brief few weeks ago that I fell in Vancouver and broke my hip and had to have surgery there. Returning home, I basically was housebound for just days and didn’t do much of anything except concentrate on walking. Of course, the regular mundane chores that I regularly do, like grocery shopping, were out of the picture so I sent my sidekick to do the task at hand, with a list…a very short list of basic necessities which did not include the coveted toilet paper that’s now in high demand.
Let me affirm, he is not the grocery shopper in our household. As I love to review the flyers prior to shopping, I always make a list of what I need and want and where I can buy it. This is not to say that I only buy what I need because if there’s Campbell’s mushroom and tomato soup on sale, I always buy a flat of each to have on hand, as well as meat like chicken breasts and prime rib roasts if they are on sale, and of course a little of some things just in case. In this case, my list was comprised of basic necessities.
The man of the house was happy to accommodate and headed off to the store. Quite some time later he returned happy as a pig in mud, very proud of his accomplishment and boasting about all the ‘great deals’ he got. Yes, he got the eggs and whatever else was on the list…and more…18 tins of Stagg Chili (which we have never purchased ever — always homemade at my house), 15 boxes of snack crackers (a really good price and just in case????), three boxes of decadent cookies (purchase driven by his sweet-tooth), six rolls of tinfoil (because he couldn’t believe the great deal), two large containers of unsalted cashews (good purchase!) and some other stuff I can’t recollect. Over $100 of extras not deemed necessities.
Well, let me fast track to now.
After being away recouping out of country for a couple of weeks and returning to store shelves bare, with another couple of weeks of isolation upon return, I should be thankful that we have chili and crackers to tide us over...
The chili will certainly heat things up and hopefully we have enough toilet paper to get the job done.
Life has a funny way of working things out, even if we don’t see the full picture at the start.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of this publication.
