The Grocery List: A Genre

It is a form of writing, of course, but of a modest and functional type; non-fiction, much like the invoice or the please excuse my absence note, although during my teaching career I observed a great deal of fiction in the writing of the latter.

I have started this week’s grocery list:

Eggs
Bread
Bananas
Fish
Broccoli

German farmer’s market photo I took in 2019

Generally considered to be prose, the grocery list is nonetheless a list and lists have a devious way of turning into poems from time to time. If I were leaning in that direction, I would have played around with that alliteration some more. Bread. Bananas. Black beans. Bacon. Brussel sprouts. Broccoli. Bulghur.

Bulghur is a great sound to end on, isn’t it. Bulghur. I never buy the stuff myself, but I do like saying it. Bulghur. Trump is so vulgar.

The grocery list is composed of simple, one-word entries. Sufficient unto their purpose. “Fish,” for example. I already know that means salmon fillet, on ice in the case from which I’ll select my half pound to be grilled and split between us tonight. The plain word “fish” contains all of that information. The grocery list, besides being non-fiction prose, is also a kind of code, shorthand explicable only to ourselves.

Phil comes into the kitchen to assist. Our going to the grocery store together is a new development in the marriage. In the Before Times, we took turns. It was nice, knowing you got a week off every other week. In pandemic times we don our masks and shop early on Wednesday, during our store’s senior shopping hours, trying to get done as quickly as possible. Phil crosses things off the list, usually in red ink, which I do not approve. I avoided red in commenting on student papers. It traumatizes kids, leads them to use cliched bleeding metaphors. Phil mans the cart and I do much of the legwork, finding and fetching.

Phil sees I’ve written “bread” near the top of the list. He puts an asterisk next to bread and at the bottom of the slip of paper, writes “also for French toast.”

Wait—you’re footnoting the grocery list?

Yes, of course, he replies. How else will I remember to get two kinds of bread?

No! This is unacceptable. Grocery lists cannot be annotated.

He flourishes it in my face. I just did.

My mind reels. Now this grocery list I was toying with turning into a poem has become an academic document. No, I say. No and no.

For a calming while we return to standard grocery list practice, jotting down the non-consumables needed in swift order: TP, dish soap, toothpaste. No need to explain which soap or toothpaste, and as for the TP, we’ll take what we can get. Last time the TP was Mexican. Our supply chain is a mysterious system.

Then I notice Phil is scribbling on the thing again. What now? I peer over his shoulder. Parentheses. Now you’re adding parentheticals? Non-essential or qualifying information? I have written “dessert.” The word speaks for itself. It is large; it contains multitudes.

In the Before Times, we might go out for ice cream on a Friday night, or drop by the bakery, but now we wish to limit our possible COVID exposure, go to the store only mid-week, when we pick up something we can have for dessert on the weekend, the weekend being the only time we’re allowed to have dessert or we’d swell up like little pigs.

We know this. It happens every week, a well-established pandemic pattern. There is no need for long-winded qualification. This isn’t a Faulkner novel for crissake, where a parenthetical can prolong a sentence for half a page or more, until you’ve forgotten how it began and are surprised by how it ends.

Also, I deliberately leave “dessert” undefined. One likes a little tantalizing suspense, hovering over the bakery selections or perusing the ice cream ranks, agonizing over the decision: German chocolate cake or apple pie? Cherry Garcia or Salted Caramel?

Another possible use of excessive zucchini

It is the nature of the grocery list to contain essentials, the things we need to buy in order to go on eating and cleaning and eliminating and repeating. For seven days if we’ve planned well. The grocery list is also a planning document. Aspirational, really. According to today’s list, we are going to have salads for dinner two nights this week, make an elaborate stir fry another night, and bake a zucchini bread with the bounty from my neighbor’s garden. We’ll see how that goes.

I snatch the list from Phil’s hands to read the parenthetical he’s added, so unessentially:

Dessert (also dark chocolate for the wife)

Awww.

 

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11 Responses to The Grocery List: A Genre

  1. deb r says:

    I find myself constantly pondering the little daily rituals; I don’t have much else to think about these days–even considered writing or illustrating a poem/list of the repetitive actions taken each day upon rising. These are imminent, numerous concerns, totally mundane, yet absolutely necessary; accomplished in a very specific order before I am can connect my lips to a coffee cup. The highly regulated list and consistency is daily noted. The teeth are brushed, clothes I wore yesterday put on, the bed is made, cats demand food, the litter box must be emptied, Geof requires a morning kiss.

    We too carefully compile a communal grocery list so we don’t forget something we have run out of or need for a specific dish. The list is regularly forgotten at home.

  2. C.M. Mayo says:

    Hola dear Pat, Ha! I just sat down to read your blog now that I am home from the grocery store! Smiles to you!

  3. Jenny-Lynn says:

    Just delightful! I love how you capture the art and fun in the everyday bread(s). And a sweet touch at the end.

  4. Sara E Finnegan-Doyon says:

    Fantastic piece, Pat!

  5. Andrea Jones says:

    So much movement! From the prosaic to the poetic; from shorthand through nonfiction to academic to awwww….

    Bravo.

  6. Beverly Chumbley says:

    Love this piece. Friends visiting from out of town coming for a meal and I can’t find the box of brownie mix that Ralph handed to me the day before to cook for dessert when they came and we have tea, but one of them can’t drink it without Stevia and I can’t find the jar we used to have for Ralph ( I can’t eat the stuff) and Ralph says he’s not using it anymore. I’m still looking today for those two things I know were in this house and now are not.

  7. Katharine Knight says:

    So playful, Pat! Especially nice at a time when we’re all lulled into the same, same of everyday life, sticking to essentials without much room for flights of fancy. You remind me, through your reframing of the mundane grocery list, how a little creativity can throw open the doors of my shuttered my mind. Thank you! -Kitty

  8. Bob Jaeger says:

    Delightful! I may have to experiment with my lists as I check off items: bread, butter, apples, cheese…Oh no! I have to sneeze…That hasn’t happened yet, but the thought has occurred. What would I do?

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