Dealing with my grocery baggage.

Before I moved to the city my mother went on a garage sale rampage- her mission was to fully-equip me with all of the essential tools of survival for city living. One of her purchases was a groceries cart. For those of you not familiar with the concept, basically it looks like a vertical grocery cart (perfectly sized for an oxygen tank or a gross of walking sticks).

When she first pulled the thing out of her van my mind immediately flashed to scenes from nursing homes and childhood visits to New York where my ancient aunts lived in a small apartment together. My aunts were always hammering home the importance of owning a grocery cart, especially after you reached a certain age. Because not only did it assist them in walking the distance between their apartment and the corner shop, but also because they were to old to carry anything beyond the 5 pound mark.

And now, at the prime age of 24, I am the proud owner of my very own cart.

My mother reasoned that (my pride and dignity aside), it would be an important thing to have especially since I didn't have an assigned parking spot near my building. I could potentially face long walks to and from my apartment lugging heavy packages or groceries and run the risk of dropping my eggs. So, logically a grocery cart would be a great way to transport stuff from my car without putting a lot of wear and tear on my arms (not taking into account the wear and tear it will inevitably have on my dating life).

I accepted this as reasonable and have been using the cart religiously ever since my move in date several months ago.

However, as I noted to my mother the other day, not only am I the only person in my apartment building to have a groceries cart-but from what I can tell, I am the only person in the neighborhood under the age of 75 to have one as well.

So I squeak along with my groceries loaded into the large silver basket, all the while thinking of a happy place far away-where my neighbors aren't staring and I am sure their thinly-veiled snickering is not directed at me.