Thursday, January 28, 2010

Day 20: A Tragicomic Adventure

Tonight was, by far, one of the more ridiculous grocery trips of my life. It all began when I got home from work and ran for the second time since I’ve been here and for the first time outside. It was really quite enjoyable even though an older gentleman in a tuxedo told me that it was cold to be running. Formerly, I had been deterred from running outside by fear of the cold and the creepers. However, I was running too hard to be cold, and I was in a lighted area wisely jogging with mace in my hand (courtesy of Eric). I will no longer fear this (for you Steph K).

Anyways, when I got home I didn’t really drink much water, but headed back the same direction of my run to the grocery store with my roommates (including our honorary roommate). An icy blast had been added to the wind as we commenced our long trek to the grocery store.

We seem to all have this thing against taking the bus to the store. You can call it pride or you can call it exercise, but I call it adventure. There is something about a group of women determinately walking to the grocery store a mile away in the freezing cold that excites my spirit-in a weekly errand kind of way.

The only thing worth mentioning about the actual time at the grocery store is that they played “Hero” by Enrique Iglesias.

Anyhow, it seems that every time we go to the grocery store we get a little more ambitious about the weight that we are capable of lugging back to the apartment. It was absolutely ridiculous this time.

Our eco-friendly (and more durable) bags were at maximum capacity as we trudged along in the fierce wind. Our spirits were low as the cold encompassed our appendages, which for some were uncovered, and slashed at our faces. My body was slow with the extra weight digging into my limbs that were filling with the lactic acid produced by my earlier run. Yet a deep spirit of determination that I believe is built into every woman for grocery shopping perseverance ran thick in our blood. Seriously, I was getting light headed from having run without eating or really drinking enough water, and I did imagine myself on an arctic journey about to die as I intermittently laughed at the preventable absurdity of our situation.

As we were arriving at our apartment one of the bars nearby was playing music, and the song was reaching its pinnacle with a rising scale in crescendo. This only made the moment all the more dramatic and me-all the more annoyed. When we finally arrived at our apartment, I put my groceries on the floor and was then advised by my dear roommate that I needed to drink water and eat protein and carbs. Unfortunately, the kitchen was overwhelmed with a plethora of groceries and hands stocking them. So I concluded the trip by pathetically placing myself on the floor of our entryway with my precious groceries sustaining me as I reached into the bags and gorged on my breakfast bars and trail mix.

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