A few minutes ago I was looking around on Facebook (because that’s what I do when I’m in the midst of a serious bout of procrastination) and I noticed that it must be Cotillion time here in San Antonio based on the number of pictures in my newsfeed featuring girls dressed up in pretty little dresses and wearing gloves. It also helped that all the pictures were captioned with things like “Susie’s First Cotillion!” or “Jenny is SO EXCITED about Cotillion” because it’s not like I’m a detective.
But it reminded me of something that happened a few weeks ago. I’d picked up Gulley’s boys from school and then they rode with me to pick up Caroline. And then Gulley came to pick us all up at my house because that’s when we were going to Bryan for the weekend. And now I’m giving you way too many details and you just died from boredom.
Anyway, we were all in the car (See? Couldn’t I have just said that the first time? It would have been so much simpler.) and Caroline announced that some of her friends were talking about a dance with a weird name that you go to in fifth grade. And Gulley asked, “You mean Cotillion?”
“Yes! That’s it. Cotillion!”
Will piped up and said, “Caroline, you don’t want to go to Cotillion. It’s just a thing where you have to go and act fancy and use good manners.”
I think Gulley and I were both taken aback by Will’s wealth of Cotillion knowledge and so she asked, “Will, how did you know that Cotillion was a dance where you have to use good manners?”
He responded, “I don’t know. Maybe it is or maybe it isn’t.”
And I decided right then and there that I’m going to employee Will’s strategy from now on. I’ll just throw stuff out there and maybe I’ll be right or maybe I won’t. But at least I’ll sound like I know what I’m talking about. Unless someone actually realizes I don’t have a clue.
Speaking of not having a clue, I went to the grocery store yesterday.
This isn’t one of my favorite chores even on a normal day. So factor in the fact that I was still a little tired from the weekend combined with a list that was a mile long because we were legitimately out of everything and not just P’s version of out of everything which means he’s low on Nilla wafers and razor blades.
I’d noticed when I went to HEB about a month ago that they’d rearranged the produce section. And I wasn’t one bit happy about it. They’d put all the organic produce front and center so that’s it’s hard to find the non-organic produce and maybe some of use would rather just wash our strawberries than pay some jacked up price. I’ll pay later when the pesticides kill me.
And they’d moved the salad stuff over where all the cilantro and parsley and celery and stuff used to be. I couldn’t find my broccoli slaw in a bag anywhere and the whole thing made me angry. I realize this is a first world problem but I am a person who paid money for eyebrow gel a few weeks ago to help my eyebrows grow out. My wheelhouse is first world problems.
After a few trips I began to figure out the new lay of the produce land. But then I was in there last week and noticed they were moving other things. The vitamins were over by the lunchmeat and cheese section and the beauty products were over by the frozen foods. I began to have a sinking feeling that this wasn’t going to end well for me and my love of routine and stability.
Sure enough, I walked in the store yesterday and the nice ladies that make sushi right past the deli section were nowhere to be found. And there were people moving stuff all around and packing boxes on the bread aisle. Then I discovered they’d moved the cheeses up to the very front of the store where they used to have all the granola bins and all the natural health supplements like Gingko Biloba. Worst of all, they didn’t even have the lunchmeat next to the cheeses. It was just the cheese.
The cheese stood alone.
What the actual heck, HEB?
It’s like no one in the grocery industry has ever heard of IF IT AIN’T BROKE, DON’T FIX IT. Now I’m going to have to spend real minutes of my life figuring out the new layout of my grocery store.
Which is time I could use to wash my non-organic produce.
Or to watch my eyebrows grow.