Friday Night Lite

I woke up Sunday morning, looked at the clock and said Oh, yeah. I didn’t sleep though 10:30 mass. I’m good, no noon mass for me! and then I thought. Isn’t this time change weekend? Did I see that somewhere? is this a sign I should I be watching TV news? That means it’s not nine something, its really eight something! I could go to 9am mass. That would be different wouldn’t it? I could go to church and be back by 10am. And then I could do... What? I didn't have a good answer. If I got up I would have done what? I couldn’t think of a single thing I would do at 10am that I couldn’t also do after 11:30am. I decided to stay in bed.

But I couldn’t stay there. This Sunday was Food Bank Sunday. Last Sunday they handed out grocery bags and shopping lists and told us to bring back the grocery bag by Sunday.

Friday night I went shopping. What? What do you spend your Friday nights doing? And why don’t those plans include grocery shopping for needy strangers? Shame, shame on you for taking part in whatever bacchanals you took part in - Excuse me while I do my Shame, Shame on You dance of moral superiority.

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Okay, I’m done now. It normally goes on longer than that and involves a lengthy interpretive dance sequence, but while I was at the store I bought myself a life sized stuffed penguin.

Those needy had a long and expensive shopping list. I had to go to two stores to fill it. Who knew Poverty Barn would carry baby diapers but didn’t carry baby formula or baby food. I also bumped up against a new issue. The list called for a can of spaghetti sauce. A can! Spaghetti sauce does not come in a can In the first place, you don’t buy spaghetti sauce and in the second place, if you are forced to buy spaghetti sauce, you buy it in a bottle! Poverty Barn didn’t even sell spaghetti sauce in a can. It’s sad when something becomes even too gauche for Poverty Barn to carry.

Fortunately, Food Lion was there to pick up the gauche slack. They also carried the elusive baby formula - they were hiding it from me - they keep it locked up like the cigarettes. Is there a black market for it? Is it a way of shaming mothers who can’t or choose not to nurse? And then there are so many kinds of formula and they are all expensive. I went with the cheapest can because I noticed it was all covered by WIC and if you are eligible for food from a Food Pantry, chances are you are eligible for WIC. Let WIC pay the $27.50 a canister. The $4.50 I shelled out for the cheapest possible can of formula was more than what I paid for four cans of vegetables and two cans of soup, combined.

I cheaped out big time with my groceries and it still ran me $45. After I got home, I looked at my list and it suggested if I didn’t want to go shopping, I could cut them a check for $20 and I would still be feeding a family of four for a week. I would like to know where that family of four does their grocery shopping.

On Nov. 5, 1968, Republican Richard M. Nixon won the presidency, defeating Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey and third-party candidate George C. Wallace.