An Open Letter to the Grocery Sacker

Dear Grocery Sacker,

I love you.

Oh, I know, this is undoubtedly an inappropriate conversation between a woman such as myself, whose sell-by date has pretty much come and gone, and a young person such as yourself, who still thinks Axe body spray is just jim-dandy. But do you know how many groceries I have bought over the course of feeding up four sons from infancy to adulthoodcy?

Thousands of dollars worth. Tens of thousands. Maybe even hundreds of thousands.

Do you know how many sacks of these groceries had to be carried from the store to the car, and from the car to the house?

Every dadgummed one of them.

"But MomQueenBee," you are saying, with just a hint of adolescent arrogance, "didn't you claim you were having kids solely so that you would never have to carry grocery sacks again?"

Yes, young man, I did say that. I have since classified that with the other statements I made before I had kids that now make me laugh heartily. Statements such as "Oh, once you have all the stuff for the first kid none of the rest of them cost anything at all." And "It's just a little baby--it doesn't have a big enough stomach to barf very much."

You see, if I ever wanted a few minutes to myself while the Boys were growing up, all I had to do is go to the grocery store. Those seven gallons of milk that would last us exactly one week? The seven boxes of cereal that would get us through the same week? The fruits and vegetables, the by-the-bulk chicken quarters and the 20-pound sacks of potatoes? They all had to be carried in, and the carrying moment always hit at exactly the same time as the paper route or the piano lesson or the soccer practice or something that kept all those young muscles from helping an old lady out. The Boys were pretty much never around to tote the fuel that would keep them running for another week.

But you? You have been there for me. You and the grocery sackers who came before you in the past two decades were always beside me making polite chit-chat on the way to the car. (A word of advice: Please do not comment on how many Brussels sprouts I buy. I like Brussels sprouts, okay? And they're good for me, okay? Enough with the Brussels sprouts amazement.)

You loaded up the back of the Surburban or the Buick or whatever enormous vehicle I was driving at the time, and you laughed when I asked if you didn't want to come and unload them on the other end, and I asked every single time. I wasn't kidding, but we'll let that slide.

Now that I'm only buying for Husband and me, I still carry a fond place in my heart for grocery sackers. As you toss those three boxes of cereal in the car (all bran derivatives, enough to last six weeks) please know that your life is much easier than that of your predecessors. I won't even ask you if you would mind unloading these at the house.

But I still love you.

All my best,
MomQueenBee