A year ago, I offered to help my parents with grocery shopping. Their glares in response made me feel like a three-headed monster. Today, I had a wildly successful shopping trip with my parents. Whoo-hoo!
It takes quite a bit of planning working up to the trip. I started a list on Sunday and posted it on the fridge with my return visit time for Tuesday. My parents added nothing to the original list, but started a new list that emerged from my dad’s pocket after I arrived.
We had ten items on the list and just finding the items and keeping the three of us together was quite a dance.
During the grocery visit, I remembered being at my parents and a bowl of cereal sat in the cupboard ready for milk and realized my parents don’t have milk. I suggested we get some. My dad agrees and we go to the milk section.
Once there, my dad only wants to buy “table cream.” The idea of pouring table cream on my cereal sounds wild to my ears. However, I know my mom used to do it when she was told to gain more weight so I suppose it seems normal to my parents now.
Both parents have lost weight in the past year, but that is a tale for a different post. I’ve learned to watch and accept many things that don’t seem right or make sense to me, but I try to recognize and accept those choices that my parents can still make. I am not a nutritionist and know this wouldn’t be on the “Eat This, Not That” plan, but decide to just roll with this one. My dad eagerly grabs the “table cream”.
This was our second visit to this military commisary. The previous week, I took my parents through the self-checkout. We were the people you did not want to be behind.
Today, my dad seemed to be very purposeful in guiding us to the self-checkout. He outstretched his arms signalling to my mom and I to stand clear, this was his task.
The engineer who has no short-term memory, mastered self-checkout in record time. Relished.