That's Life

Issue of Sept. 12, 2008

Dear That’s Life,

Whether or not you want to admit it, at some point or another, you talk to yourself. We all do it –– don’t be ashamed. It’s when you answer yourself that there’s really a problem.

Case in point: Standing in Supersol and not being able to find my shopping list, I stood in the baking aisle and stared blankly at the items on the shelves, hoping that by some divine intervention, all of the items I needed would miraculously come to me in a vision. That plan failed and so I began talking aloud, going through my menu for shabbos, hoping to jog my memory. A gentleman from the store thought I was talking to him and asked if he could help me –– but being that I am beyond help, clearly he could not, though I thanked him for his offer.

One by one, some of the items I was missing at home came back to me and it seemed like my little exercise was working. I visited the different aisles and picked up what I needed but I knew I was still missing something. I chose to stand in a corner of the store and stare at the items in hope of remembering what it was.

You know you’ve been in this situation. It is incredibly annoying when you return to the supermarket again after you’ve already been there twice and just keep forgetting one or two things. I was therefore determined to remember the forgotten item even if that meant talking to myself and looking like a complete lunatic while standing in the store.

Unbeknownst to me, I was blocking the items behind me on a shelf, until I noticed another woman trying to reach above my head. I quickly apologized, moved out of the way, and asked her not to mind me as I talked to myself and tried to remember what I had forgotten. Like we were members of a support group, she said she had just done the same thing. It seemed that while we both had spent time in the store talking aloud to ourselves, neither one of us were successful in remembering what we had forgotten. I called it quits and got on line, resolving to return to the store again before shabbos.

Soon there after, my fellow ‘group member’ got on line behind me, and as she loaded her items on the belt, we wished each other a good shabbos. And then it hit her ––“Oh!,” she exclaimed and left the line to get, what I assume, was the missing ingredient. Lucky duck, I thought, as I watched her scurry off the line to retrieve the item and hopefully complete her list. I would not be so lucky and returned to the store later on to buy my elusive raspberry jam.

When sharing this incident with a friend, I told her that I often forget my shopping list and how much it frustrates me, especially when it’s before shabbos and time is of the essence. She had a simple suggestion.

“Well instead of talking to yourself in the store, Miriam,” she said, “why don’t you just type your list into your phone which you always bring with you anyway?”

Duh.

MLW