Ordinary Days: Lessons from giving up my grocery store runs

Under normal circumstances, I can make three to four trips to the grocery store per week, first buying the groceries we need for the week’s meals, then going again for all the necessities we run out of or that I forgot to buy in the first place.

I also complain a lot about grocery shopping, which is not a good trait for someone who goes to the store so much. When I first started hearing about grocery delivery services, it sounded perfect. Sign me up, take my money, buy my groceries.

But I dragged my feet and never signed up. Oh, I thought about it a lot — usually when we went to the beach and I faced the monumental task of navigating the Orange Beach or Perdido Key Publix along with the rest of the vacationers buying their margarita mix and sunscreen. Or when the holidays came and I needed to be home cooking or preparing the house for guests rather than standing in the check-out line at the store. But I still never signed up.

Then came COVID-19. In the name of reducing exposure, my husband Matt decided only one of us should shop for groceries and that one person should be him. I put up a little bit of a fight at first, but pretty soon I realized this was my chance to give up grocery shopping! Hallelujah, someone else could take on this task!

I remember how confident I was writing out that first list, how excited I was to be staying home and waiting for those bags of groceries I was sure would come, in the exact amounts, types and brands I’d asked for, without me having to lift a finger.

Well, for anyone who’s bought food over the last couple of months, you know things didn’t go exactly as planned, despite my husband’s best attempts. The first time he came home with No Sugar Added Moose Tracks ice cream because that’s all Publix had, I almost lost my cool. (My preferred ice cream along with a steady supply of my 5 o’clock (eh, or somewhere around there) beverage swiftly became my only two requirements during quarantine.) I just knew if I’d been the one to do the shopping, I’d have been able to find my ice cream, along with the tub of spreadable butter, the multigrain bread and the Soft and Strong Cottonelle toilet paper.

Of course that wasn’t the case. It wasn’t long before I learned of the product shortages, the quantity limits, the people going the wrong way down the now-one-way cereal aisle.

I also figured out quickly that letting go of the task of grocery shopping was just one of the many ways I’d have to let go during the strange corona months, which is hard for someone whose default setting tends to veer too heavily toward over-controlling. Over the course of these months, I’ve had to let go of my writing time, my introverted need for alone time and my exercise class. I’ve let go of the idea of having a swept-clean floor for more than 10 minutes at a time, Friday night dinners out and the ability to feel at peace instead of completely scattered all the time. And I know many people have had to give up a lot more than me.

It’s a hard lesson, figuring out that you don’t really have authority over very much that happens in your world. And it’s precisely because of that I realized I need to be the one shopping for our groceries.

So forgive me, personal grocery shoppers, if I don’t sign up for your services. I think you’re really great, and I really wish I could be one of your best customers, but one thing quarantine has taught me is that it’s good for me to shop for my own groceries (in a non-pandemic-stricken world, of course). I can pick out the right apples, find just the right ice cream and locate Welch’s All-Natural Grape Jelly on the bottom shelf of the PB&J aisle. I can’t control much, but I can control that.

When I’m not writing about my family and our various shenanigans, I write novels and go to the grocery store. My next novel, “The Summer House,”releases June 2. You can reach me by email at lauren@laurenkdenton.com, visit my website, laurenkdenton.com, or find me on Instagram @LaurenKDenton-Books, Twitter @LaurenKDenton or on Facebook @LaurenKDentonAuthor.