Wipe, Please.

During the last Mahket run, Ma toodled on the scooter to the produce department with me trailing a safe ten paces behind.

Ma stopped and surveyed the department. A hunter getting the lay of the land.

"You know those green peppers you picked last time went bad. Your father put them in the basement."

"That's not my fault if you don't store the food properly."

"I know," she conceded. Ma horned in on the display of green beans.

A younger woman was carefully selecting her choices, one by one, and putting them in a plastic bag.

"You didn't do a good job picking out the green beans last time," Ma sniffed. "Some of them were touched."

I almost commented on what was touched, but kept my mouth shut.

"I want a pound. Pick them like that girl over there is doing."

"Maybe we should let her pick out your green beans," I muttered.

The woman turned as she overheard the conversation. I smiled politely as I pulled a plastic bag from the roll.

My turn came, and I approached the altar of the green beans. Under Ma's hawk gaze, I selected a candidate and promptly rejected it. I was sure there was nothing particularly wrong with that green bean, but it seemed the prudent way to go. I selected another and put it in the bag. Ma must have approved because she zoomed down the aisle in search of other veggie prey.

By now, you've all picked up the fact I hate shopping. I hate grocery shopping in particular, and I especially despise shopping at the Mahket. I don't do the grocery shopping for my own family. Himself came to me as the designated slayer of grocery since he did the food shopping for his mother, and he naturally assumed the role in our marriage. It was either that or starve. Grocery shopping falls under the "not a Little Princess job" like yard work or bathroom cleaning.

I looked at the mound of green beans as if they were writhing adders. I pushed my hand into the underlayers to see if the specimens were any better than the fellows on the top. As I did this, I began to wonder how many people, during the start of flu season, have pawed through the beans before I arrived. Had they washed their hands before they arrived for shopping? Had some child picked and wiped his hand on his nose and helpfully helped his mother select green beans? I shuddered, and made a mental note for next time. Grab another bag and use it as a glove so I wouldn't have to actually touch the produce.

More selecting and my eye caught the sign announcing Fresh Green Beans. Fresh my Aunt Fanny. How fresh can green beans be sitting in a bin that is not refrigerated and sitting in the bin for God knows how long? Do the beans stay in the bin overnight? Does the produce manager have his clerks restock the vegetables into a refrigerator overnight? The beans sitting in the bin can't be fresh. Fresh is being shipped to the produce plant minutes after picking and being flash frozen and ensconced in a polybag. If vegetables are not sealed in a polybag, they shouldn't be brought home.

I took my bag of beans to the scale to be weighed. My hands felt gritty. Another mental note, bring some wipes next time. Better yet, try to get Ma and Dad to subscribe to Peapod, the online grocery shopping service in their area. Though that wouldn't work, I'd be getting calls at all hours that "they didn't send me my green beans."

I found Ma in the aisle looking at polybags of apples.

"I want a bag of MacIntosh."

Shopping with your mother, $200.00. Not having to hand select MacIntosh apples? Priceless.

Not A Little Princess Job

Ma's washer went on the fritz. Somehow, I ended up volunteering my washer and services and Himself to pick up and deliver the Weeble laundry. Y'know, doing other people's laundry is definitely not a Little Princess job. And the moral of this story? Never miss an opportunity to keep your mouth shut. Next time I hear "My washer is broken." The response is "Oh, wow."

I suppose the job could have been worse. I could have had to take it to the laundromat. You can read all about my first laundromat experience The Princess and the Laundromat.

Overnight

I picked Dad up from the hospital after he had a procedure. Hed was sent home though he was looped to the gills. Poor fella couldn't get warm and was shivering so much his teeth chattered like castanets. I called the day surgery to ask if this was normal. Nope. Try to get him warm and if that doesn't work, bring him back. Warmed a quilt in the dryer. That and Dad's fave ratty Turkish terry bathrobe made him feel better. He was running a low grade fever, but I thought that was due to him being over dressed and tucked up with 1,000 quilts. After he was warmed up, I got him to just wear pjs and blanket and sheet. His temp came down. I ended up staying the night because Ma can barely take care of herself let alone trying to cope with Dad. Sat. morning, he was up, about and had cereal for breakfast. He grumped at Ma for hovering so figured he was back to normal, and I went home.

"You look horrible," said Himself as I flopped on my chair in the sunroom.

"Thanks, Kid. Just the kind of fuzzy welcome home feeling I was looking for."

"Rough night with your Dad?"

"No, he did alright. Just that I forgot how hot the upstairs room is. My God, how did we live like that? And my bed had tons of junk piled on it so I slept in the other bed. The other bed had junk too, but not so much that I couldn't pile it on a chair. There were too many peas in the bed and the pillow wasn't soft and comfy."

The Young One had come upstairs while I was whining.

"You sound like the Little Princess from the story," she chuckled.

"She was based on me. What's your point?"

"Guess you won't feel like cooking us supper because you didn't sleep well," Himself said flipping through the channels while the ballgame was in commercial. His comment was a statement and not a question.

"You got that right. Though it just wasn't because of two star accommodations at the hotel. Dad perked up around 10pm and he was looking for a playmate. So I sat up and chatted with him for an hour or so. Ma was busy shuffling papers. Around 11, I decided to go to bed. I'm heading through the livingroom and there's Ma standing in the middle of her papers with a candle and match that had to be yard long. She was burning papers in the fireplace."

Himself laughed.

"It's not funny."

"Don't you and your brother joke that a Zippo would do wonders to clean that place out?"

"Yeah, but I don't want to be in the middle of the house when it goes up! So I slept with one ear open listening to see if Dad was having any problems. Do they even have a smoke detector in the house?"

"I don't know."

"Well, I stayed awake wondering about that, and then trying to plan my escape route from the second floor. Do I go out my bedroom window, hang from the sill and drop hoping I'd fall into the bushes instead of the concrete where the clothes line is or do I go out the office window and jump to the concrete patio?"

"You wouldn't have to worry about jumping?"

"Why not?"

"The fumes from the burning Styrofoam plates would probably kill you first."

"Thank you, Gretchen Sunshine. She's not burning the plates anymore. She's putting them through the dishwasher now."

"Hey! I know what you can get your mother for her birthday?"

"What?"

"A fire extinguisher."