Just a few days ago I found myself back at the supermarket for the third time in a week.
After a hello and how are you from the friendly checkout operator (a male uni student), whom I know quite well, he scanned my groceries.
“Well, I see you are doing your weekly shop again,” he says.
I look at him and sigh: “No, I expect this lot will only last a few days and I will see you on the weekend also.”
He glances down the checkout to see it overflowing; then looks back at me. “Really?” he says.
I nod and continue placing my items in the scanning queue. I daren’t own up to the fact that I also visit the rival supermarket on some days of the week also.
You see, I have teenage boys. Food is the only placation for their troubled souls and growing bodies.
Some days I am too scared to stand still in the kitchen for long. I am afraid they might view me as a meat product and I may well be mistaken for food if nothing else is found in the fridge or pantry in 15 seconds.
First there is the cakes, biscuits and muesli bars – I long ago gave up trying to produce enough home made ones. For so many years I had no need to purchase store bought cakes or biscuits as I made them all myself. Proudly producing from my lily white hands home baked goods for the morning and afternoon teas, spelt flour and all.
These days my lovingly produced goods are gone in a matter of minutes, not even tasted, just swallowed and then I am asked “Any more Mum?”
I feel a bit better with the next items going through the scanner. Fruit, fruit and more fruit. What is not eaten as a whole food is mashed into the blender and served as smoothies either before or after sport.
Camembert and Gouda are the next items. Now before you chastise me for spoiling my sons with lovely cheeses, these are for me and any other waning mother that chooses to join me on Friday afternoon for a glass (or bottle) of wine. Our sanity-breaker of the week.
L’Oreal permanent hair colour in Siena, rolls down the checkout next. I got my first grey hair when pregnant with the first baby and now got a whole head of them. I can’t even wait the six weeks to the next appointment at the hairdresser for colouring. I need to touch-up almost weekly, so over-the- counter colour it is. I wonder if my stress levels dropped, would my hair go back to it’s natural colour whatever that may be?
Scented candle. My checkout boy looks at me with a smile. He probably thinks it is for my bedroom; that being such a ‘MILF’ [Google it if you don’t know what it is – Editor] as I am, that it is to seduce my husband.
Well he has got that all wrong. It is for my stress levels and sensitive nose combined. When teenage boy armpit odors are disguised I feel a sense of calm. People walk into my house take a deep breath and relax, no trace of teenagers (for a few minutes anyway).
I have taken to entertaining my drop-in guests at the kitchen bench where I can keep my commercial cooking production up while I chat. My friends are quite used to me pottering around the kitchen cooking while we slurp coffee or wine (it depends of time of day and the severity of the topic we are discussing).
The shopping that Checkout boy doesn’t get to see is the wine from the bottle shop and coffee pods delivered to my home to make my weekly shopping list complete.
Bringing up the rear of the shopping trolley is the washing powder for the constant washing of clothes for sport and school, right next to the dishwasher tablets for the continuous loads of dishes, pots and pans to produce all this food.
After living in an old bungalow for many years, my husband finally agreed it was time to renovate our home and a fine job he did too. After twelve years of preparing meals on a draining board and washing dishes in one single sink, my new and beautiful chef’s kitchen (with two ovens) was overwhelming.
Our first night in our newly renovated house, the kids in bed my husband enjoying a coffee while I waltzed around my new kitchen trying things out, I blurted my secret out. “Darling, I have a confession, I am having an affair…”
He looked up, spluttered on his coffee and just stared at me unbelievably.
“I think I love my dishwasher as much as I love you,” I said.
He fortunately composed himself to realise the funny side of this discussion. He laughed.
I still enjoy buying dishwasher tablets eight years later to feed my secret lover.
So when there is a discussion on how expensive it is to shop for teenage boys, don’t just take into account the actual food that is required. You must add on all the extra items required for the mothers of these teenage boys that keep them sane enough to get through each week.
“Oops,” I say. Of course there is one more item I forgot to add to the shopping: paracetomol for the headaches that come with thinking about how I am going to juggle cooking, cleaning, washing, shopping, taxi duties and holing down paid work etc – not to mention writing these columns for Motherpedia!
Shopping complete, well for today anyway.
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