The End Game

Last Shabbat was very nice and most importantly, we didn't run out of food. (Or sand either, for that matter.) Thanks to all who asked and my deepest apologies for not posting sooner and keeping you in such a high state of suspense. We also did not get hit by Kassams, although a helicopter did spend many hours hovering over the beach. Maybe the pilots like bikinis.

Since this week has rapidly moved right along, I found myself shopping today for, you guessed it, this coming Shabbat. Grocery shopping is one of my least favorite things to do and actually, given how many hours of my life have spent doing it, it probably ranks #1 on my personal ratio chart of time:disliked activity. I mean, labor was no fun but the sum total for 7 kids was maybe 50 hours so I've gotten over it. Especially since they became teens and I had new horrors to deal with. But shopping for food is still with me.

One of these days I'm going to sit with an industrial designer and redo the damn carts. The whole shopping thing is incredibly inefficient and stressful (unless you enjoy ice cream melting onto your your nectarines, meticulously culled from the pile only to end up bruised anyhow.) I know the issue is money- these carts are cheap- and the need to provide storage for homeless people, but really, in 2007 I think we can do better.

We were low on toilet paper so I moseyed down the corresponding aisle. I wanted cream color, but the only brand they had in that color smelled like vanilla. I don't know about you, but in my humble opinion vanilla is a flavor for food, not for bathrooms. Not flagging, I spied a package of rolls that looked yellowish and could have passed for cream. Getting closer I saw that this wonder smelled like.....pineapple. Pineapple? Who is doing the marketing research around here- some Fijian? Has anyone bothered to check out what the, er, end user would like? Now maybe I'm all alone on this one, but does anyone really want their privates smelling like a fruit basket? I live in such an olfactory sensitive environment that I haven't even changed my perfume (Obsession, if you must know) for years because no one liked me wearing anything else, even Paloma Picasso, which I adored on my aunt. (My good friend Marilyn innocentlyly asked me why I was slathered in mosquito repellent. I know, I know, body chemistry. And $54 down the tubes.)

Most of the other choices had dog or ducks or hearts on them. I finally found a nice, soft package of plain white, 3 ply, now on the shelf awaiting use. No cream, guess we'll dim the lights.

So proud of myself that I can do apolitical posts now and again. Except ya know what, that joke about diapers and politicians needing to be changed often and for the same reason just crept into my head. Darn, so close.