The Nuns Were Right

by Laurie Lalish

The nuns were right, I suppose. What is sin? Open your catechism to page four, to the Lesson of the Milk Bottles. We first view the perfect life, the glass bottle of pure white milk. Diagram #2 illustrates venial sin--say, telling a white lie or sassing your parents, the milk bottle now speckled with black dots. More grievous still is mortal sin, killing someone, adultery, missing Mass on Sunday. The milk bottle (and one's soul) is now solid black, completely poisoned with sin.

How could I have known that what I considered a harmless quirk, searching supermarket aisles and carriages for other shoppers' tossed-out grocery lists, could lead to serious crime, society's label for mortal sin, imprisonment its temporal hell. The grocery lists were pure entertainment, or so I thought, as I imagined other people's lives by items on the list. I wondered about "4-5 loaves white bread".  Lots of sandwiches go out that shopper's door each week.  And toilet paper is a constant on everyone's list, affectionately called "t.p."  Of course, we all stock up, it keeps well, and who would ever wish to run out? A list of ingredients, steak and mushrooms, shallots and wine, would conjure up visions of a lovely meal.

Years of shopping have become such a bore. I long ago gave up the diversion of reading labels. Oh, I might check fat content now and then, but that's no thrill. I always buy a little meat for family dishes, I shop for school lunch snacks, a little salt, a little sweet, throw in some fruit and vegetables, cat food, dog food, the boring list goes on. I shop at the same supermarket each week. Having memorized the contents of each aisle, my shopping is a pretty streamlined operation.

On Thursday, something akin to passion seized me at the supermarket. I had dodged my way through the after-work crowd, myself and everyone else in a hurry. Paying for my purchases, I noticed the next shopper's items being placed on the runway.  First fruit, beautiful, individual pieces, not bagged in cellophane or second-class foam trays, yellow and green apples, tangerines, lemons, an avocado. Gorgeous, Cezanne-like fruit, their geometric shapes and glowing colors tumbling towards me, falling off the wall of the Metropolitan. My supermarket eyes sparked. What next? A tidy six-pack of beer from a New Hampshire brewery that names its seasonal beers like poems. I caught "Winter Frost."  Beautiful. My eyes seized upon the next item, whole wheat pitas, adult food. Ah, then Italian green beans and delicate yellow squash in a light mushroom sauce. I knew all this from the glossy illustration on it’s silver-wrapped box. This was becoming too sensual, my breathing suddenly shallow and rapid. I gave a quick sideways glance at the man behind the food, looked about my age, late 'forties, nicely trimmed beard, chino slacks, yellow polar fleece jacket. A red light flashed on some neurometer tucked away in my brain. Yellow, who wears yellow? Cheerleaders, Texas ladies with dressy white cowboy hats, babies, matrons at spring weddings. The yellow threw me off a bit, gave me a chance to pace my breathing and calm my thoughts. Was he a single man, choosing carefully for himself? Was all this for a romantic dinner or was he buying for his family, a hero among husbands, buying beautiful food for his wife and two children? I had to know.

I had a food life once, growing up the product of a Northern Minnesota mixed marriage of the 'forties--Norwegian mother and Italian father. Our home was spotlessly clean (thanks, Mom) and we were very well-fed (thanks, Dad). No tinsel package of frozen beans could ever replace the steaming platefuls of my father's homegrown Italian pole beans, the vintage seeds handed down from his mother. Served with butter, salt and pepper, those wonderful flat beans would melt in your mouth. Nothing will ever replace my father's soups or my mother's pastries. I did not marry a man who cooks, a bitter match, and entirely my own fault. Sent to the supermarket, my husband returns with five pounds of day-old bagels, cans of sardines, Little Debbie's, store brand pancake mix. Oh, please. Will he ever realize the way to my heart is through the supermarket aisles?

I plotted my crime. I would wait in the parking lot and follow the man with the yellow jacket home. Perhaps as he was unloading his groceries in his kitchen, lights on, I could peek in the window, as good as a movie screen. Would passion send me to his door, would I push my way in, obsessed by the contents of those food bags? Suddenly, it wasn't just the food, it was the entire kitchen I needed to know about. Where was the microwave kept? Wall oven? An island? A peninsula? I imagined good-looking kitchen magnets holding tidy notes on a sparkling white refrigerator. How about table linens, there had to be table linens, neatly folded and tucked away in a drawer that glided open at a touch to display its goods.

The walk to the car sobered me a bit, the thoughts of my children, my babies half-grown now, waiting to check out the school snacks, the salty and the sweet, my cat waiting for her can of Friskies. I think what ultimately saved me and the glass bottle of white milk was the tiny crate of Spanish Clementines I had just purchased for my family as a seasonal treat, sweet little oranges with a romantic flavor. My Dad would have bought such a treat for us at Christmas; the Italians love their fruit and food is how he showed his love. My passion for that man's food refocused realistically to the romantic fantasy it had been. No arrests, then, no page seven of a tabloid naming me "The Food Stalker," no shame on the family. The beautiful little Clementines were mine, the yellow jacket his. Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Goods.

Copyright © Laurie Lalish 2003