I got up this morning to make coffee for Skye and me and found a package of raw, ground turkey sitting on top of the coffee maker. It had been there since the day before when I went grocery shopping.
My plan was to make burgers with it but when I walked in the door with grocery bags, Skye and the boys were eating take out from DaVinci’s. I joined them after I put all the groceries away that needed to be refrigerated. All but the ground turkey. I blame that on the bagger. He put squishy foods with canned foods and raw meat with vegetables. It threw me. I set the germy meat aside and forgot about it.
I showed the room temperature package to Skye, who was sitting at the breakfast table, waiting for his coffee and reading the paper.
We exchanged facial expressions that translated to: “bummer…toss it.”
“I guess my body doesn’t want meat,” I said, while shoving the unopened package into the full garbage can.
“That’s your ‘take away’?” my husband asked.
“Yea. This isn’t the first time this week I’ve had to throw away a package of meat. Remember the ground beef I left in the trunk when we were camping?”
“It doesn’t say to you that you should try to remember to put the meat in the fridge?”
“The Universe is telling me to become a vegetarian.” I try to say this with as straight a face as possible, because I do realize that this is a strange “take away.” But I kind of like it and I’m going with it. I like to keep him guessing.
When we met we were in the excel program. That’s how we like to describe it. He moved in with me ten days after I met him. He had a creepy roommate on a sketchy street in Troy. I had a vacancy in Averill Park. We realized it would be risky to move in with a complete stranger but it was an improvement for both of us. We’re wicked romantic like that.
One day I said, from now on I don’t like such and such. He looked at me as if to say, “but..last month..you told me….you said you….”
I waved my hand in front of his face and said, as if erasing his harddrive, “Everything you know, you don’t know.” It’s one of the lines that continues to resurface throughout our marriage. We can both feel it coming with my announcement to become a vegetarian.
“But what if the Universe isn’t telling me to become a vegetarian?” Skye asks.
I measure out the coffee grounds for three cups of coffee, because I know he’s going to want a refill. I dump it into the filter, fill the water compartment, slam down the lid and set it to brew.
I turn to him and say, “You have to remember to put the meat I left laying around in the fridge. But I’m not eating it.”
It always come down to Skye having to make the adjustment. Watching this register on his face is half the joy for me and I can’t hold back a laugh anymore.
Subscribe to the
RSS feed or 
Email Updates.Help us promote this article by bookmarking it to your favorite social network via an icon below:
I bag my own groceries because I worked in a Trader Joe’s grocery store for years and I can’t stand when baggers show no common sense. I actually group items together to be rung up accordingly so they will put them in the proper bags together, and they still screw that up sometimes. ??? I also have the above-mentioned slew of assorted canvas bags, and in the Midwest, canvas bags equals “one a-them pain-in-the-ass hippies,” so it’s just easier to do it myself. They look at me weird for that too. Basically, I’m just going to get weird looks here, no matter what. It’s a living.
Meat has always grossed me out. I’m allergic to eggs and red meat, according to the allergist’s tests. My husband is a dear and handles all meat cooking duties. I’m weird about slimy eggs and milk too. I’m an animal products wuss. I’ll avoid meat with youuuuuuu!
One of the reasons I like the self-checkout is that I can put all of my stuff together the way that I like it, which is to say sorted obsessively.
When I lived in Clifton Park, I shopped at (now) Hannaford I made the bag boy separate chemicals from food, put cold with cold, bread in a separate bag, all the good things. I didn’t do it myself, I just made him do it right. After the third time, he set the world speed record to the back of the store when he saw me.
I remember the meat in the trunk story, I believe. Wasn’t it there for a while? Am i losing my mind?
It was there overnight. So was the milk and the hotdogs but I snuck them in the cooler in the morning and no one was the wiser. And no one got sick, either. But the meat….I didn’t dare. (hotdogs don’t count. they’re like twinkies, they can sit out forever)
Poor, poor Rocky Capri! He really has no idea what he’s gotten himself into does he?!! The last sentence is beautiful!
I will join the CFBL group – I too will do the self-scan checkout just so that I can bag the damn groceries myself! Cold with Cold!! Evenly distributed!! Duh!?!? And since we shop at the same store, remember the senior (read “ancient”) bag guy, who would bag the eggs separately and then freaking toss them (toss as in “airborne”) on to the top of the cartful of groceries?!!
To quote my new favorite movie, The Hangover, “not at the table Carlos”
The trailer for Hangover had the whole family in stitches. I can’t wait to see it.
Might want to get a sitter. There’s nudity and sexual situations. It’s hilarious though!
That turkey chili would have been tasty. Well, not with warm meat.
Tasty and smelly. And according to Troy, fattening.
I always bag my own stuff or at least work feverishly to do most of the bagging at Kroger. They know who I am. I am the woman with the Big Bear canvas bags that they love to comment on. “Big Bear–you’ve had these a long time.” I used to remind them that Big Bear had only gone out of business a few years ago but I’ve had the bags for at least 10 years. What was the point of that?
I have to have the cold with the cold and I also have a goal of packing them with equal weight. This stems back to the coop days in St. Paul when I was expected to bag and I had to lug the bags by myself, many times during pregnancy, to my “garden level” (basement) apartment. I wanted a balanced load.
Control Freak Bag Lady
Dear Control Freak Bag Lady,
I think we’ve met at a meeting. I was the one with the filthy canvas tote (from LLBean’s 1995 catalogue), the bag I use for all the canned goods. NOT the meat!
Love,
Super Freak Bag Lady
I think it’s pretty obvious. You are meant to move out to the country, get a cow and have fresh milk anytime you want it. Refrigerated milk just cools down the coffee too quickly. Get the cow. You’ll be way better off. I see an 800 number in my future.
Last week I left 2 containers of half and half out for 8 hours. Hmmm…what is the universe telling me?