Abnormal Groceries and Brand-Name Shame

You know how when people look in your cupboards or fridge without being asked to, you feel sort of -- naked? Or offended? As if they should beg your pardon? And how other people's cupboards and fridges seem utterly foreign?

You know how, if you have a choice, you hide generic and store brand supplies, instead putting brand-name cans and bottles out for guests? Which is why for hair products I began buying only Pantene because it was the only brand that if someone saw them in the bathroom it wouldn't embarrass me ("Aussie"? "BedHead"? "Nizoral"? "Pert"?).

You know how when you first start dating, you two go to all the best places, drink fine wine, gift the rarest chocolates, and then you settle in or marry and live like paupers scraping ash off burnt toast in dread of spending one extra penny?

Well, I'm giving all that up because now I grocery-shop online, and with the coronavirus hoarding shortages and shortfalls of this and that, one must accept substitutions for familiar name brands, allowing into my house, for the first time, strange new name brands and packaging at unfamiliar price points.

After unpacking my last grocery shipment I left the non-perishables out on top of the microwave not wanting put them away and could not figure out why, but now I think:

1) These brands are like strangers in the house and I have this weird need to get used to them.
2) This is my "store." Actually going to the store could be lethal, what with all these people scorning masks and wanting their freedom, so I've re-created a version of a "store" and enjoy the feeling of variety and wealth that was part of American grocery shopping. 

There'll Be No Teardrops Tonight

Better than drugs.

Josie was over for hamburgers cheerfully bringing a bagful of fireworks bought at Molly Brown's in Franklin County, because where she lives they are illegal and she hasn't shot any off in 18 years, and while we drank wine and had dinner there were plenty of things to be sad about, God knows, but always our eye was on the explosive treats we'd get at after sunset and that we used to get as kids  back when sunburned skin and playing with gunpowder and matches were normal. We waxed nostalgic about sparklers, sorry we didn't have any, until I looked into my stash (of course I have a stash: a gross of bottle rockets) and found one box of six blue sparklers.

We also had fountains, fireballs, snakes, rats, roman candles, a PT boat, and noisemakers. Carefully we gathered up a pail of sand and a bucket of water and Bic lighters, and carried our treats out on a silver tray into the moonlit night and proceeded to tease out all the fuses, light them, run, and watch them explode and shiver multicolored lights. One item fell and shot sideways, starting two separate fires in the meadow that caught and burned and rapidly spread, but I waded into the tall grass with the water bucket and doused 'em, a heroine and a legend in my own mind. Why, after half an hour it hardly mattered whether Josie's sisters insulted her and got her kicked off the family property, or that I will never again hear my mom's voice on the phone.

We came back in as different, lighter-hearted people (who incidentally stank of gunpowder). Happy Fourth! Enjoy it while you can. Families are overrated.

Gun Shopping 101

Written for ladies, but anyone can visit this informative article by my sister, rulalenska, city girl and one tuff cookie. Above: Colt .38 Police Special revolver, standard-issue for police departments 1940s-1970s; this one pre-1945.