There was a lot of excitement around here today. Our big shipment of groceries for the coming weeks arrived at 1 pm. Of course, the process started at 10:30 am, when the shopper texted me saying he was beginning. The process consisted of him gathering together the items I ordered or substitute items in case what I wanted was no longer available. And there were a lot of those. However, I did wind up getting 56 of something. Bags and bags full of groceries. It was like I was running a summer camp for boys. Well, in a way, I am.

Maybe I lost my mind. I had six days to wait in between ordering the groceries and having them delivered. Once you get your day and time slot, you can add to the list. And I did. The list grew every day. Sometimes I added to it 3 and 4 times a day. Sometimes I would take things off the list. It became a living thing. After a while, I had no idea what I’d ordered. But it didn’t matter. I was committed. Ort should be committed.

My shopper, Michael, was a doll. He texted and sent me images of everything. We had a lively exchange while he shopped for the next hour and a half. He may have done the shopping but I had to make constant decisions about what substitutes would work.  He delivered everything to the door and with a wave of his hand, was gone. Then the real job began. We had to unpack, wash, sanitize, disinfect and find places to put 56 items. That took another hour and a half.  But at the end of it, I was feeling the satisfaction of a job well done. Then hubby looked me dead in the eye and said,

“Now we have to eat all this food.” It was said in a way I didn’t like. It had an immediacy to it that was jarring.

“Not right away.” I laughed, trying to keep this light. “This is supposed to last us for 2 weeks.”

He gave me a doubtful stare. I panicked. I wasn’t going to go through this ordeal again any sooner than I had to. And the thought of a three-hundred-pound husband with an eating disorder alarmed me.

“Darling,” I said, “you don’t have to plow through all this food in the next 3 or 4 days. We will ration it out. You’ll see.”

“But it’ll go bad,” he said.

“No, it won’t,” I said, with a catch in my voice. “We’ll eat the more perishable foods first. I bought us 10 days to 2 weeks’ worth of groceries. You’ll see.”

“I don’t know,” he muttered. He left the kitchen shaking his head.

It may have only been 3 o’clock in the afternoon but I had to take to my bed. I am a mere shell of my former self.