Need to buy (aka all out of....)
Toilet paper
Kleenex
Ensure chocolate drinks
Milk
Folger's coffee (individual bags)
Beer (no bottles, only cans)
Why do I bristle when I get this call?
Why are there so many paper products? No matter how many I purchase, they never last more than a week. I try so hard to stay "ahead of the wave" but it never seems to work. There is always something needed.
Always.
I should not complain but I do. It helps me cope.
Even I want to exclaim - enough when I hear this list (mom always shares it with me when she goes for the specified items). =) I don't even think we (the McGradys) go through as much toliet paper as they do. You should go to Costco and get 2 cases! Maybe they are secretly throwing it away so they can have something on the "list" every week. =) It's okay to complain, sometimes we have to. Much love.
ReplyDeleteIt's the same list. I agree with Jeanne. We need to buy cases and cases of each of these items and stack them up and have them delivered too. Amazing that their shoppoing has boiled down to these few things. What about toothpaste or green tea or soap?
ReplyDeleteDo these items represent the most basic of human needs? I wonder what my most basic needs are now. Coffee would be on the list, spelt bread, eggs, some type of cheese and something green seems to top my list most weeks.
ReplyDeleteWhile my main (and absolute favorite) clients were your parents I have taken care of about 3other clients on a regular basis and have seen countless others. I mention this because I have found that most of them share an irrational fear of running out of paper products. I was always reassureing your Mum that there was no need to worry because there was T.P. stashed all over the apt, but time after time I would hear her on the phone asking you to buy more. I had another client, Kathyrn Gordon, who was a real pistol and was constantly buying huge packs of T.P. and stocking every closet in her Horizon house apt with them. When we would go to the store I would try to remind her that we had just bought T.P. a couple days ago (not mentioning that she now had sooo much TP lining the closets and cabinets of her apt I think she may be creating a serious fire hazard), and she would insist on buying more. I eventually gave up because buying another thing of T.P. gave her a few hours of relief in her chaotic world (and because I found the whole thing very funny).
ReplyDeleteI mentioned the T.P. issue to my Mum and she said that when my Oma & Opa were in their 80s they were in constant fear of being caught without T.P. They were always stocking up. My mom said that when they went through the basement of the house (Oma & Opa had moved to a nursing home) there was enough T.P. to wipe the asses of a family of 6 for at least a decade.
So, what is it? Is it that this generation went through two world wars and the Great Depression? Was there not enough T.P.?
Or is it that when you reach your 80s and 90s you realize that if you are caught on the pot without a roll of T.P. you are far less equipped to deal with this situation discretely?
Maybe it is a combination of the two.