Some days just be like that

Or: the day my life became a word problem

This has nothing to do with writing. Just something vaguely absurd that reminded me the world we live in is irrational and whimsical, no matter how seriously we may take it.

I get my groceries by pick-up from our local grocery store. I hate shopping in general and shopping for groceries in particular. It’s time-consuming and loud and full of people and busy packaging and fluorescent lights.

(I am very aware that some of you are now armchair-analyzing me with your DSM on hot stand-by. Do my children also have sensory quirks? Yes. Are we having one evaluated for spectrum disorders? Also, yes. Do I then extrapolate everything we learn about our children’s odd executive functioning and ponder if maybe I also am just a little weird (more than the usual sort of ‘I’m gonna write a novel just for fun’ weird?) Yes. Yes, I do.)

In any case, my aversion to grocery stores plays but a minor role in this drama. Let me set the scene…

I wake up, remember we have no orange juice, and lay in the darkness of my bedroom wondering if it is worth the effort to arise and adult. It’s a PNW November day, thus rainy, cold, and the sun won’t rise for another twenty minutes. I spend all of it burrowed like a snail under the blankets, contemplating my existence, a la ‘Werner Herzog’s Sad Beige Clothes for Sad Beige Children’.

Alas, the bus comes in forty minutes, so I rise and chivy my children into warm clothes, raincoats, and send them off to enrich their minds. In the interim, orange juice has not magically appeared in my fridge, so I open the appropriate app and select my groceries.

I then go about my day, unsuspecting of the nonsense about to be visited on my life. A few hours later, I get a text: some items are unavailable. No issue, as this happens frequently. I approve or deny the substitutions. A simple yes/no decision, the barest motion of my finger. Yet, so much hangs in the balance of that binary choice.

Let me lay your fears to rest. There is plenty of orange juice. There are, however, no oranges. Naval oranges: fresh out. Would I like a bag of mandarins instead?

Sure, I think, and carelessly set in motion my own demise with a swipe of my finger. I write, I sweep, I eat a snack. I go to an appointment, and then, I arrive at the store.

The man brings out my order. I thank him and read an article while he loads the bags into my trunk. I wave and drive off, still unaware and innocent.

It is raining when I get home. Fat drops that hit my face while a blustery wind tears the leaves from the deciduous trees dotting the neighborhood. Their brilliant orange and red finery stands out against the dark evergreens, the dull gray of the shifting clouds above.

I carry the groceries in. My cats peer out into the tempest and decide their lives are not worth the risk. They curl up on the couch and watch as I begin to unpack.

The juice is there, as is the milk, the cheese sticks, the package of mixed nuts. Aha! the mandarins. I pull them out and place them on the counter. But, what is this? Another bag? I set it by its twin, bemused, but accepting. Perhaps they put two in by mistake. Oh, well, the little one loves them; he’ll gobble them up.

Next the yogurt, the lettuce, and… more mandarins? Cereal, butter, another bag of mandarins?!? I pull bag after bag out of the pile on the kitchen floor. A noise of disbelief escapes my lips as the brilliant orbs stack one atop the other.

They tower before me, a shrine to tiny citrus. Little cartoon oranges beam at me from the packaging, their eyes blank and uncaring that I have an orchard’s worth of fruit in my kitchen.

Six. Six bags of mandarins. On top of the ones we had left over from last week’s grocery run.

I sit down to ponder how my life has suddenly and without warning become a word problem on some third-grader’s math homework. (If Anna has x bags of oranges, with y oranges a piece…)

I dig through the app to find the ‘recent orders’ tab. Surely, this has to be a mistake. Who on earth would load six bags of mandarins into some lady’s cart and think, ‘yes, this makes total sense?’ Maybe I am unaware of the weird things people buy and in what quantities. Maybe this poor grocery worker simply sighed and muttered, ‘here’s another one…’

But! epiphany dawns. I find my original orange order, (delight in my alliteration), and rub my face tiredly. I should have stayed under the covers this morning. Continued to channel my inner hedgehog and not braved the irrational and absurd world outside my house.

I ordered six oranges. They were out of oranges. They offered mandarins. I accepted said mandarins. They gave me six bags of mandarins. Honor is appeased. Balance is restored.

So… does anyone want a bag of mandarins?