In which your kiss, your kiss is on my list

I define good shopping trips by how many grocery lists I find. Most days, that number is zero, but yesterday, I found two. Yes, I shamed myself by walking up to a stranger's cart moments after he'd abandoned it (behind a Roto-Rooter van), and grabbing the list out of it.

I walked away reading the list, as the driver of the van backed directly into the shopping cart at a low speed. Hey: I am not on traffic patrol, I'm a collector, on duty collecting.

The list is slightly depressing, torn from a notebook of lined pages, then torn in half again, there is a star drawn at the top of the page, then the notation FILL OUT FORMS in expressive, loopy script. The F in FORMS is especially large and sprawling--whatever these FORMS were, they're important. Like, maybe a lottery claim form, or adoption papers.

Below that, beside the notation VONS, are these items:

Windex
Beer
puddings/Fruit

So, maybe adoption papers were not what he was filling out--I'm imagining the list writer was a he, based on the handwriting. Maybe the forms were divorce papers. If your major activities include sitting around cleaning the windows and drinking beer, I'm guessing there might not be a female presence in the house.

I can't decide if the "puddings/Fruit" notation is either-or. Either way, the plural "puddings" means he's coming home with Snak-Paks. It's a lonely little grocery list, that one.

I've misplaced the other list, but my cousin Eloise sent me one recently, scrawled on a pad advertising prescription cholesterol-lowering pills, that contains the following items:

$40 cash
bathroom cleaner
vinegar
kitchen sponge
cranberry tablets

I like that one, it's a little sinister. There's definitely a "get rid of the body" vibe, although the cranberry tablets complicate things. My scenario includes a prostitute, a traveling salesman, and a jealous boyfriend. Or pimp. He could be a pimp, but at any rate, he's definitely jealous, waiting in the bathroom for Sheryce (that's the prostitute) to finish up with Ed, in from Omaha. Initially, I thought maybe they jumped him for his money, but then they wouldn't need the $40 cash.

It's true, I lead a rich internal life.



Star of the day. . .Jim Dandy Mangrum
posted @ 2:27 p.m. on June 28, 2006 before | after

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She lay awake all night,

zzzzzzzzzzz......