the single cart…

10pm.  Monday night.  Looking around the store, I’m aware that it is mostly populated by my kind due to the hour.  It’s really an unconscious observation though, until I’m in the checkout line.  And the only reason there is a line at all is that at that hour, there are only a few aisles open anyway.  The brief line allows for the requisite checking out of other people’s stuff.  We all do it.  You know this. 

I realize I’m neither the first, nor the funniest, to observe human behavior during the checkout process at the neighborhood grocery store.  It’s a fantastic glimpse into our nature, for better and for worse.  I was struck tonight, as I often am, by the contents of my own cart and what they say about me.  There is no question, if one were briefly examining my cart, that I am a single woman who rarely, if ever, cooks. 

Here’s how you’d know:  sliced cheese, sliced bread, sliced turkey, frozen entrees (like, 10 of them), cans of soup (again, 10-ish), apples, blueberries, smallest available container of milk, tea, coffee and ice cream.  Oh, and in case my single status wasn’t abundantly clear from the food contents, a couple of magazines.  Christ, I don’t even slice my own cheese. 

It makes me smile, and occasionally it makes me a little melancholy.  Naturally there are times when I wish I had someone to call from the store to ask what I should pick up for dinner.  Or times when I wish I had a reason to say “no, little Timmy, put that back.”  But mostly, I enjoy the freedom to stroll aimlessly through the aisles randomly selecting things that sound good, or the freedom to run in for two things and run back out, without worrying that someone at home might be forgoing fresh milk or juice because I’m in a hurry and have a chocolate cake craving and need paper towels.  In recent talks with girlfriends we’ve discussed the preeminent need to enjoy these times, these moments, because there’s a good chance we’ll wish to have them back someday.   Even now, I have friends who would do anything for the chance to go to the grocery store alone at 10pm on a Monday night.

Tonight reminded me of a particularly funny cart contents incident a few years back, one which I’ve been known to mention to people when I’m in a particularly self-deprecating mood.  I’ll never forget this one Friday night I stopped by the grocery store on my way home from work .  According to the three items in my cart, I was in for the saddest Friday night a single girl could have.  Here’s the evidence:  pint of Haagen-Dazs ice cream, tampons, Martha Stewart Weddings magazine.  Yep, looked like a real low point.  I remember praying Murphy would take pity on me and not let some attractive guy saddle up behind me in line, take one look and high-tail it.  The funny thing is I remember giggling in that moment, because I was actually looking forward to a fantastic evening entertaining myself and I wasn’t the least bit aware of what it might look like until the items were placed on the conveyor and the sum of their parts looked somewhat depressing.

2009 is upon us, and I find myself and my two closest girlfriends all single for the first time in 10 years.  The other day, one of them said to me that she felt a little remorse because over the last few months, she’d been looking at her girlfriends as a distraction from her upheaved love life, and she felt as though that perspective prevented us from reveling in and enjoying the moments for what they are, rather than distracting us from what they are not.   I suppose that is the mindset I’d like to take with me into the new year — trying to enjoy people, moments and circumstances as they are, instead of using them as distractions from what is not.