Black Holes

Shopping lists are a great thing.  Write down what you need. Buy it. Leave. If only it were that easy.

I remember going into CVS frequently back in high school to buy a bottle of shampoo or something (remember Body on Tap shampoo that was made with beer? Or that brand called Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific which really did make your hair smell terrific?  I wish that stuff was still around.) 

Anyway, I’d go in for the shampoo and somehow I’d walk out after having spent $20 of my hard earned money on random things I thought I needed but probably didn’t.  It became a running joke with my friends. Set one foot into CVS and you can kiss your $20 bill goodbye.

Many years later, Costco took the lead as my shopping black hole.  Bulk paper products are pretty much all I need at Costco.  Well, that and the five-pound tub of guacamole, thank you very much.  Yet somehow, I’d walk out of Costco $250 poorer and the proud new owner of a giant container of snick-snacky delicious granola that I’m convinced is laced with Ecstasy.

I would also try to steer myself away from the Costco candy aisle but when someone is selling a big, red bucket of individually wrapped Twizzlers, I’m buying.  The whole premise of this product packaging is lost on me anyway.  I'm still going to eat an entire fistful of Twizzlers, it's just going to take me longer to individually unwrap each one as I inhale it.

Today, it dawned on me that my newest black hole is Whole Foods.  Perhaps I am naive (even at this advanced age) to think I can walk in there with my organized, little shopping list. The fruit is so pretty. The butcher department is full of hormone-free, grass-fed, pre-marinated meats that I can just throw on the grill.  They have mini-speakers in the meat case serenading the steaks with classical music so the meat doesn’t get stressed out.  Well, not really.  But the cheese department is to die for and just one pass through the aromatherapy aisle and I’m so Zen’d out that I don’t even realize that I’m putting a six-pack of apricot nectar and imported Adriatic fig spread in my cart.

I think I need professional help.