Who cares?

I usually shop at Market Basket in Danvers on Thursdays--while Cole is at preschool and Aidan is at school. I shop there because it is much cheaper than Shaw's. I drive out of town to a store where I negotiate narrow aisles filled with too much stuff. Every week. Or every other week. I get road rage and I want to ram into people with my cart because Market Basket is a busy place. I wait in line with the other people waiting in line, a collective sigh of resignation, a sigh that says, "You don't get something for nothing." But still I go. To save a dime. Actually, to save a lot of dimes.

Today I shopped at Shaw's. The store in the town where I live, the town where I spend most of my awake and asleep hours. I spent $137, much more than I usually spend for the same items at Market Basket. I bought bread and milk and eggs and butter and chicken and an Amaryllis growing kit and three chocolate peanut butter santas--3 for $1. I bought a few other things, my splurge buy a couple of packages of on-sale diapers, the kind I like best. But nothing really out of the ordinary.

I was in and out in about an hour. Today I bought time. I bought time to hold my baby, make silly-ass Christmas cards that only a crazy person would make. I bought time to sit at my computer and rant into it. I bought time to be out of my car and in my house, maybe knitting. I bought time to write about my time here--and either forget about this or write a letter about it to someone who cares.