Timeline of a Grocery Store Visit

I think one of the craziest things about being in your 20s is the juxtaposition of feeling like you’ve mastered the art of adulting in one moment and feeling like you just finished potty training the next. Nothing encapsulates this feeling like a trip to the grocery store.

The young adult’s grocery store visit as experienced by me* is, without deviation, as follows:

17:37:00: Enter store.

17:37:02: Internal debate between basket or cart rages; decide on cart due to poor upper body strength.

17:38:03: Add bananas to cart. Consider buying other, possibly healthier fruits; decide anything you buy will probably go bad before you eat it.

17:38:12: Pretend to consider buying vegetables; remember you don’t hate yourself and move on.

17:38:13: Fail to resist temptation to buy fancy cheeses and purchase six, two of which you will later throw away after one taste.

17:44:02: Try not to look at anything in the bakery for too long for risk of being ensnared by the carby wiles of donuts, cookies and cupcakes.

17:44:40: Buy bread (the 10-grain kind) and English muffins (the “light” kind).

17:46:20: Buy string and sliced cheeses; fear imminent constipation due to excessive cheese consumption that will occur in the following weeks.

17:46:42: Look for the low-fat large curd cottage cheese.

17:47:03: Accept that you will never find it and move on. Some things just aren’t meant to be.

17:47:30: Agonize over price differences in name brand yogurt and store brand yogurt. Go with store brand.

17:50:13: Select package of 18 eggs that appears to have no cracked eggs; anticipate finding out if you chose wisely or not upon arrival at home.

17:50:49: Add family-size package of deli turkey to cart. Turkey: the fit and responsible adult’s lunchmeat of choice.

17:53:06: Wonder why there are not more options for microwaveable breakfast sandwiches, because what else are you going to eat in the mornings? Something you actually cooked? Absolutely not.

17:55:22: Stroll aimlessly around the organic food section.

17:57:41: Realize there is nothing that looks affordable or edible in the organic food section and leave.

17:57:42: Blessedly remember that you need toilet paper.

17:59:02: Buy $12 bottle of wine on impulse and feel fancy. You earned this.

17:59:30: Look for shortest checkout line. The grocery store truly is a wretched hive of scum and villainy.

17:59:55: Check out and pay.

18:06:24: Leave store, forgetting, for the millionth grocery run in a row, that you need paper towels.

*Post originally appeared on Firespring's blog November 12, 2015. Pre-vegan, obviously.