Lesson 1 - Assignment

Date Night

My husband and I find ourselves, more often than not, driving to the local food store on a Friday evening.  Perhaps this started because one of us always received a paycheck at the end of the week--well before electronic deposits.  We began calling it ‘Date Night at the Jewel.’ 

The Rules:  It’s important to select the right shopping cart.  Preferably one without a wobbly wheel.  Remember, it’s a date and we should drive the cart around in style.  First stop is the bakery, then deli, then all the boring necessary food items, such as vegetables we’ll need during the week.  We spend quite a bit of time cruising the aisles.  I read labels, and the hub sighs and taps his foot.  I look for bargains, he is an impulse shopper.  Thank god he has me.  The wine department is our favorite; we both agree to disagree on which bottle to purchase.  Sometimes we buy two.  After all, it is date night.


Faded Photographs

I never got around to putting our photographs in albums.  Everything went into a stiff cardboard box with the best intentions of being documented with a date and possibly event.  Sure, I did the baby albums, although I kind of slacked off when the kids survived their fifth birthday. I have small albums for each of our departed dogs, but I never got around to the rabbit.  I finally did our wedding album when most of our friends were on their third marriages.  We looked so painfully innocent, young, and thin.

Then the box disappeared, along with all the envelopes of vacation photos and negatives (remember those?), only to resurface when we were searching for some ancient holiday decorations when it occured to us to rummage under the stairs.  That scary place where things go to die.

After removing all the cobwebs we sat around the kitchen table passing photos around.  I must admit our bellies hurt from laughter.  We said, "ohmygod" alot. 


Goodwill Hunting

A few years ago my best friend and I set a day aside to ‘go shopping.’  We usually do a coffee date and then wander a mall, the way girlfriends do checking out the Jimmy Choo's, but settling for shoes at DSW, but on one particular day my BFF surprised me.  She had a confession to make.  I braced for the worst as she revealed herself to be a resale junkie. So that afternoon she literally drove me to three resale stores, two Goodwill shops, and one Salvation Army.  I sneezed and hacked following her through racks of used clothes.  My good friend was thoroughly focused and had armfuls of items she deemed useful.  On the other hand, I found it entertaining to discover some of the crazy items of former owners.  I told her she had a disease and she didn’t need any of these things, but she was in denial and spend ten dollars on three bags of clothing.  "A bargain," she said.  Several months later most of these items were displayed in her yard sale.  I still have the book that set me back fifty cents.