Domesticativeness

About once a quarter, I go on a mega-shopping trip. That's about how often I have enough money left to justify gambling $200 on a "will he eat it or won't he?" attempt to look like a real human being and fill my refrigerator.

My buddy and his (now) four-child family always has the kind of fridge where, if you want something, you've inevitably got to move something over, take something else out, balance something crazily and THEN get what you want.

Me, my usual refrigerator/freezer total is two frozen pizzas, a box of Barber Foods Chicken Cordon Bleu, some salad dressing and maybe a pint of ice cream.

But once in a while, I just throw caution to the wind, grab all my spare change for the coin machine at Stop & Shop, and drop about $200 on everything I can possibly imagine.

Yes, in the end, my freezer is crammed full and the fridge is still half-empty. But I have lots of food.

Now the challenge is to eat it all a) without getting too fat; and b) before it goes bad.

Cold cuts for sandwiches. Milk. Stuff like that. With expiration dates.

I mean, after the nuclear holocaust, there'll be the roaches, viruses and frozen pizzas, but some stuff you don't want to eat after it's gone bad.

Like the aforementioned milk.

But it's nice to have options for snacks, and not have to buy food every single day on my way home from work if I'm hungry.

Plus, I got lots of berries. Munkees like berries. And they freeze, so they'll keep a while.

Of course, loading up on food means a few hiccups.

1. I can't bag groceries. Unlike many of my friends growing up, I never worked at Weis bagging. Yeah, it gave me an edge on my career, working at the paper instead, but on the other hand, whenever I have to bag, it's like watching the proverbial munkee and the proverbial football. This time, though, there was somebody bagging for me, saving me that embarassment.

2. That way, I could just live with the embarassment of my debit card not working. The strip is scuffed, and the last time I called, they wanted to change numbers if I got a new one. This won't work, given that I use that card for things like online orders, so I've just been living with the scuffed card. About two-thirds of the time, it works anyway. The supermarket... it never works. And I couldn't make it work today. So they had to get a manager to punch in the numbers.

3. The upside is, this was the first mega-trip since I got the new SUV. Nice to not have bags in the trunk, bags in the back seat, bags in the passenger seat... everything went in the trunk quite nicely. In fact, I could've used the cargo cover with just a wee bit of rearranging, that's how much fit in the well.

Well, time to take a break from my "goodmunkee" to-do list and enjoy the fine sports night of tennis (U.S. Open women's final, the gorgeous Maria Sharapova - think Anna Kournikova, but she can play - vs. Justine Henin-Hardenne, who may not be as attractive, but certainly has the game) and football (the No. 1 vs. No. 2 college football battle, Ohio State vs. Texas). They're on at the same time, so the "go back" button on my remote will get a lot of use, I'm sure.

And hey, kickoff/first serve were at 8 p.m., I left the house to go shopping at 10 to 7 (when the deli is still open!) and got back in about an hour, so I didn't miss a play.

Well, I had to LISTEN to a few plays while I was unloading and putting away the groceries, but close enough. $200 worth of food would take some people three hours, methinks.

Not bad for somebody who only does this a few times a year.

Links:
• Stop & Shop
• The U.S. Open
• Ohio State football
• Texas football

Aside, in one of the poorer bits of scheduling, I'll find myself in New York City on Monday (the fifth anniversary of 9/11), covering an indie movie premiere for HorrorTalk. This oughta be a fun trip. Not.