Boil to rubber consistency--be thankful.

Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity.
~Voltaire

I used to be an effective shopper.
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This morning I went to Jewel for a suspiciously "low priced" selection and for their self-ascribed "making your life easier." Yeah, right. Let's write a book about this. "The poetry of Jewel: making life easier."--This was the oddest grocery experience I’ve ever had. First, mixed good news: I filled out one of their preferred cards, and I got a coupon for a free bag of President’s Choice chocolate chip cookies (they also sell small appliaces and linen). Now, I’m really trying to eat healthy, well, as healthy as a poor person can eat in this country. By the way, there’s a reason ham hocks, fatback, butter and PC cookies are cheap; makes you fat and gives you a coronary--the industry’s commitment to killing hungry writers. I'm not too pretty weight wise, so I really thought I would tear up this coupon, thus, proving to others and myself I’m a wise man who takes his newfound “poor writer/starvation diet” very seriously. I didn’t! Moreover, I tore into that delicious hydrogenated sugary goodness the moment I walked in the door to my new home here in Chicago.
Very thin, healthy, older roommate: "Hmm."
Me: "Honeymoon's over. Ya' got a fat starving artist living with ya'. Not glamourous, huh?"
Shame. Deep, deep shame . . . but hey, some damn good cookies none-the-less!
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I can’t find a thing in the store. Nothing grouped in a familiar fashion. The meats, oh the meats! Everywhere. How am I supposed to compare prices of similar meat products across the store from each other? I tell you how: by trotting back and forth--across the store--with a gallon of milk crushing my Jewel faux-wheat wheat bread, a Tombstone Pizza, (3@ $10.00 . . . I could only afford one and I still bought the wrong kind), and five cans of imitation Jewel-delicious tomato soup, (2@ .59), in a flimsy plastic carryall. I’m a strong young man, but quite frankly, the gallon and a couple of so ounces of soup were too much, so I gave up and grabbbed the sorriest three-piece chicken breast for the lowest price . . . I head for check-out . . . .
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I will boil them, Gulag-style, to a rubbery consistency and they will make three bland dinners. I will add salt. I will be thankful.