20 Kinds of Pasta Sauce - Dec 7 2023

 

20 Kinds of Pasta Sauce

Dec 7 2023

The background music

is a bouncy tune

I'm not supposed to notice.

In the doldrums

of a Tuesday afternoon

in the Food Bazaar

or Big Bob's Grocery Emporium,

the up-tempo number

is designed to raise the mood,

make the brightly lit space

as big as an airplane hangar

seem crowded with shoppers

bustling up and down the aisles.

The choice is daunting.

The abundance

seems barely possible

    . . . and may not be for long.

But still, we take it for granted,

as if it just happens

and always will.

20 kinds of pasta sauce

and canyon walls of cans,

invitingly placed

face out.

Packages of cereal

full of empty calories

loom over my head,

a loud parade

of cartoon characters

competing for attention.

The most tempting

shelved to meet a child's eye;

prime real state

which is also for sale.

Buy, everything urges,

even if we're not aware

of the subtle prompts.

I manage to get away

with 2 kinds of ketchup,

a dented can of soup

reduced to half price,

and the advertised special

I doubt I'll even like.

Cellophane-wrapped tomatoes

and a head of iceberg lettuce,

carefully selected

from the ”farm-fresh” vegetables

so brightly displayed;

a colourful cornucopia

overflowing

the downward sloping shelves.

Forgetting where I parked

I wander through the lot

like a lost soul.

The jaunty tune

I never heard

is still repeating in my head;

an ear-worm

that has burrowed nicely in

and seems determined to stay.

I never buy iceberg lettuce or cellophane-wrapped tomatoes, give the cereal aisle a pass, and make my own sauce. (Ketchup and canned soup also don’t go into my cart.) But then, I’m not your typical shopper!

I suspect the modern grocery store — which hasn't been around for long, even though we’ve known nothing else — is unsustainable. The transport and industrial farming, let alone the factory processing, are all fossil-fuel intensive. Climate change may badly affect agriculture. Consumerism as a way of life is equally unsustainable. Not to mention meaningless and unsatisfying!

Choice can be paralyzing. And it means that many more chances to make the wrong one. Which ends up making us less happy, not more: the second thoughts become a loss, not a gain; and we are in general far more sensitive to loss.

And while abundance is nice, much of it is hardly necessary. After all, how many kinds of potato chips does one really need?