Pantry

Whew - I'm back from the grocery store. I know you were just sitting on pins and needles while I was away......

I set out today to make my life easier for the first two weeks of school. You know, the adjustment I am going to have to make to getting up at dawn's asscrack to shuffle these little people out of my house, yanno, so that I don't have to slam down the laptop screen while reading those bloggers who post with NO PANTS and NO WARNING. Anyway, back to this adjustment period where I no longer get to sleep in on a daily basis...

I am not a morning person and, truth be told, I would rather that you just not speak to me at all. Hand motions are fine, talking amongst yourselves - perfect, but PLEASE just do not ask me any questions at dark o'thirty, okay? If you can't figure it out, just do something, anything and hope for the best.

The start of school means that, yes, I have to start getting up early. It also means that I have to pack lunch, at breakfast time, while 3 people are invading my kitchen space and likely dripping syrup on the cat. I do not like to have other people in the kitchen with me, I also do not like to get up early (did I mention that?) and so to be up early with people under my feet just pisses me off. Oh, and the cats, the god forsaken cats that LAY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE KITCHEN FLOOR OH MY GOD! No matter how many times I have tripped over or stepped on a cat, the frickin' nimrod still lay in the dead center of the kitchen. Oh, yes, and he only does it when people are in there. You know, he is social like that. The other cat, god help her, just screams until each and every human being awake has filled her bowl at least once, but preferrably twice. See, she's a grazer and must eat in multiple courses.

Where was I? Oh, yes, the grocery store. I went today in order to make this transition to PTA mom a bit easier. We are normally a recycling, reducing, reusing family. Though it causes mulitudes of aggression due to the piling up of plastic and whatnot, along with about 14 bazillion tupperware containers, we try the best we can to not buy prepackaged, individual servings of foods. Today was not a good day for the earth. This family purchased $169 of prepackaged, individual servings of food to shove into lunchboxes - all likely to be traded for HoHo's. My pantry, oh my pantry, it looks like a convenience store and the kids set it up all neat and organized so they can "shop the shelf". I think I may like to sleep in the pantry tonight and just graze on all the lovely little portion sized bags, lined up and happy. So the first two weeks of school shall go effortlessly, I hope, and the kids can just open the pantry and pack their own lunch! It will be back to reality once all this stuff runs out. Not only do I care enough about the earth to not buy this much packaging, it is also EXPENSIVE, holy cow! The total today just about made me puke because, people, we did not even get any dinner on this trip!! This total was purely about crackers, pretzels, cookies, cheeses, and the ever important Pirate Booty. Ok, yes, there was wine, but that is kind of a given. I mean really, we do have kids and how else do you expect us to cope?

So, if you need some lunch, just give me a holler. I've got Ritz Smiley Crackers in some cute little red bags that will knock your socks off.