The Goddess Speaks
The Goddess Speaks
CHICAGO -- I couldn't be with my mom on Mother's Day, so I spent the day doing one of her favorite things: grocery shopping. Mom factor
sneaks up on youFor 24 years I've lived in the comfort of my parent's Kalihi home, never worrying about an empty refrigerator or dirty laundry. Now that I'm attending graduate school at Northwestern University, I don't have the luxury of a mom. I don't get to experience the miracles of clean clothes or a well-stocked pantry without working for it.
When I arrived in Evanston in January with my brother, the first thing we did was locate the nearest supermarket. Luckily, we found a Sam's Club. Shopping there is one of my mom's favorite pastimes.
"I won't be here to take you to Sam's Club," my brother kept telling me, "so you'd better buy everything now."
I grabbed a case of 80 hot dogs, 10 pounds of ground beef, a box of 300 Ziploc bags, a dozen rolls of toilet paper and a case of 1,500 brown napkins. I bought five pounds of boneless skinless chicken, eight cans of tuna, two quart-size bottles of Ragu spaghetti sauce and several packages of dry pasta.
That wasn't all. Add a microwave, a portable heater, shampoo and boxes of cereal to the damage list. And not once during my two-hour shopping spree did I think maybe I was buying too much. In fact, I was worried I wasn't buying enough.
"Do you think 1,500 napkins are enough, Jason?"
"I don't know," he shrugged. "Up to you."
IT didn't occur to me how ridiculous my spending was until my brother left and I was halfway into my first quarter.
All that time spent at NU's cafeteria, at the food court in Old Orchard Shopping Center or in diners around town kept me out of my kitchen for weeks. I had forgotten about all the food I'd bought earlier, how I'd agonized over 10 pounds of ground beef not being enough.
I looked with shock at the crowded shelves in the kitchen cabinet with cans of Spam and tomato sauce stacked high, wondering when in the world I was going to eat all that tuna. And soup. And pasta. And Hamburger Helper. As at home, I kept thinking I had nothing to eat though my kitchen was overflowing with food.
That's when I called my mom.
"Hey, Mom, guess what? I shop just like you."
My mom is notorious for her shopping habits. I think she's in denial about it, but all the kids know. She studies the Longs ads every Sunday and stocks up on canned foods as if stocking up for war. She has every supermarket floor plan memorized and gets agitated when they switch things around.
Her habits became so clear to me on Sunday, when I found myself walking through the store the same way she would: first through produce, then up and down every aisle, and through the meat department before ending at last at the ice cream freezers because ice cream melts first.
It may not be a hugely significant moment, but it showed me how much she is a part of every aspect of my life.
Looking around my apartment now, I see six toilet paper rolls, three unopened reams of printer paper, more than two-dozen packages of instant saimin, two bags of potato chips and a case of Coke.You know what I see? I see home.
Catherine E. Toth is a former Star-Bulletin editorial assistant
now pursuing her master's degree in journalism
at Northwestern University.
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