The back part of my brain is responsible for the food inventory and grocery list, the front part is for composing witty correspondence and the top part is for remembering where I left my phone.

Yep, that’s me.  Chief in charge of acquisitions.  Its almost a full time job.  Seriously, this chore in my daily life takes almost as much brain power as my real job.  Keeping a ready inventory of all the dry goods, perishables, produce, socks and undies in this household is a never ending task.  The question “what’s for dinner” is followed by a beep beep boop and the whirring sounds of my brain as I open the file “what’s in the fridge” followed quickly by “what’s in the freezer”.  Once inventory is complete we can assess what sort of a meal we can put together without a trip to the grocery store.  Boxed mac & cheese with a side of steamed zucchini followed by a stale crackers and peanut butter.  Excellent – I’ll be back in 30 minutes.

Its ensuring enough food in the house to get all 4 of us through at least the next 24-48 hours.  Plenty of healthy and organic options too if you don’t mind.  Oh and have I told you yet – remember how last week I LOVED orange juice?  How orange juice was my jam?  How I was plowing through a liter of orange juice like it was crack and you couldn’t keep enough of it in the house to try and sate my UNDYING THIRST FOR ORANGE JUICE?  Yeah, well now I think its gross.

I mean, really.  How are we supposed to keep up with all the whimsy and ever changing appetites?

Groceries are a neverending task.  You see, you can’t just go to one store, stock up and be set for the next 7 days.  Oh no.  The super massive supermarket that should clearly be a one-stop shop, well it doesn’t carry the brand of gluten free crackers we like.  Or diapers, yeah they have them, but they are precisely $2.00 a pack MORE EXPENSIVE than the other stores.  But the one-stop super massive supermarket offers roughly 80% of what we need – until, you know, they completely run out of ketchup or some other vitally crucial pantry item we cannot live with out.  Not to mention that their produce is complete shit anyways.  So we spend an hour there getting the aforementioned 80% of stock.  Then off to the good produce place, which offers everything that is green that we could ever need.  But then, CRAP!  I forgot to buy cream cheese (which in our house is akin only to LIFEBLOOD) so over to the neighborhood grocery store where I remember we’re down to our last 1/2 cup of rice so I better get some of that too and oh look, canned soup is on sale.  Awesome done.  What?  Dental floss?  Are you f$%king kidding me?  We’re out of dental floss.  Off to the drugstore.  Wait, toothpaste.  Better get some now while I’m here.  And laundry detergent, that was getting low too.  The thing is that two days later, we’ll need hamburger buns and asparagus so I know I’ll be making the rounds again in just a matter of hours.

But its not just the groceries and consumables that fall under my portfolio of purchasing responsibilities.  Its things like undies.  Kids BLAZE through these things.  Not only do they grow out of them at a record pace “Mom, these gaunch are too tight!”  But they tend to disappear (Remember that accident in the restaurant?  We sacrificed two pairs of Minnie Mouse panties to the poop gods that night).  All of a sudden, Shorty #2’s down to two pairs.  And then, #1 seems to have shot up 3 inches overnight and all her pants are floods and every skirt is DefCon Kardashian levels of short.  Back to the aforementioned super massive supermarket that also remarkably sells clothes to stock up.

This is a constant battle of the inevitable in a family striving to consume less and be more environmentally conscious.  Yeah, we’re doing a shitty job.  But what do we do?  Maybe I should just buy more coffee – that would curb appetites and stunt their growth.