The Grocery Store

I don't know what it is, but being in a grocery store feels like being surrounded by opportunities. The opportunity to eat pizza for dinner or scarf down a dozen pirogies.

Sometimes when I'm in peak procrastination on a Sunday afternoon, I'll walk into my brother's room and say, "wanna go to Shnucks?" and I'm always greeted with "sure."

Then I do some verbal gymnastics and convince my mom that we need to get groceries and helpfully volunteer to go to Shnucks.

My mom hands me the credit card, I put on my coat,  slip on my vans, yell at my brother to hurry up, and begin the 3 minute ride to Shnucks.

When we get there, my brother an I, even though we promised not to buy any "junk" start our shopping journey at the produce section.

We contemplate on wether or not to get salads, or some soup, or some amazing smelling olives.

Then we move to the cheese and buy some fresh mozzarella. Which leads us to the fresh bread where we squeeze every baguette until we find the crunchiest sounding one.

Next we move to the small but mighty Israeli food section wedged between the canned tomatoes and beans. My brother sticks his hand into the shelves and sweeps down eight bags of Bisli into the cart.

Then I ride the shopping cart to the milk where we decide if we should be bougie and buy the chocolate milk in the glass bottle or Praire Farms chocolate milk that doesn't make us feel fancy.

If we're running low (which we usually are) we go over to the Ramen section and grab ten creamy chicken packages ($.21 each --> pretty good deal).

Next we hit up the cheeses again and grab shredded mozzarella and cheddar and sour cream.

We follow the aisle to the juices, where we stock up on fruit punch, and then hit the frozens.

If we feel like it, we pick out our favorite pint of f Ben and Jerry's, if not, we just grab some packages of frozen pirogies and head to the checkout line.

We usually go to the self checkout and grab a Snapple each while we're at it.

We put everything in bags and head bag to the car.

Going to the grocery store is probably the most bonding my brother and I do other than the car rides to and from school and the memes we send each other on Instagram DM. We complain about parents, homework, school, we "treat" ourselves with some rule bending of "no junk" and we just talk, which is really nice.

My friends used to think I was really weird for loving the grocery store so much, but its a place filled with happy memories of convincing my mom to buy the food I want (again from a combination of verbal gymnastics and some begging).

There are no worries in the grocery store, you could go there in your pajamas and if anyone looks at you weird it doesn't matter cause you can laugh it off. If you're like me, and have no self control, you buy all the junk food your heart desires. And most of all, the most wholesome conversations come when you least expect them, and the grocery store is a perfect platform for this.

Rant About Myself

Sometimes I get so frustrated with myself that it seems I have two people controlling me, one logical person who thinks ahead and makes a plan to get things done on time so I don't get stressed (aka smart Sarah) and another who controls my physical being and disregards anything that smart Sarah for instant gratification (aka no impulse control Sarah).

I wasn't always like this. Freshman year, for example, I would finish every paper two weeks in advance and write about one hundred flashcards to memorize for every Bio test. I would watch TV if I had time left over.

Since then, my work ethic has only gone downhill.

Last year in particular it was at an all time low. So low that I wouldn't start anything until the day before and turned in 90% of my papers with an extension. But I would always get everything done. I would always finish all the physics worksheets before a quiz and make flashcards for every history test.

This year I somehow have much more work but my work ethic has become worse (with the occasional burst of productivity). It really annoys me because I know what I need to do, and I have everything planned out so if I follow the plan I can just finish everything I need. But no impulse control Sarah has other ideas (such as watching Shameless until 5am or getting home at 9 after swim practice and watching four hours of American Horror Story until I crash).

I would like to directly call myself out and ask why do I do this to myself.

The less I follow the plan, the more stressed I get, and as a result I get in a stress lock and just fall asleep. And I know this when I'm three episodes in and haven't studied anything,  one voice screams "DO YOUR WORK" while the other is like, "ehhhhhhhhh." (This is especially happening right now because I've been procrastinating on studying for my psychology midterm tomorrow (RIP me).

So wish me luck cause I'm gonna need it.