Lists of Fury

I love lists.

Seriously, it brings joy to my life to make lists. When we are low on food I throw open all the cabinets and the fridge and studiously mark down what we need. I cruise recipe websites for new dishes to try and furtively copy down the ingredients I need to pick up. I am so anal about the food list I actually write it in order of how the supermarket is laid out for maximum efficiency, putting produce, meats, pastas, frozen goods, etc in separate groups.

And there is always a separate list for Things To Be Bought at CVS which is also written grouped into Bath and Body stuff, Household stuff, Meds, etc. Of course there should be another category “Random Crap I Know I Will Pick Up” but it is hard to figure that stuff out before the impulse strikes.

I thought that making these lists made me a little awesome, if we’re being honest. I was like “look how organized I am! How efficiently I shop!”. But you know, there is a solemn truth about list-keepers and their lists.

Without the list? I am SCREWED.

It’s like how you have all your friends’ cell phone numbers in your cell phone so you never have to actually remember their number. So it is with lists, when I write it on a list it leaves my brain and resides on that post it until I read it at the store and thing “Ah yes!”. So when I forget that list at home, as I have done TWICE this week, my mind is more or less completely blank. I stand in the middle of an aisle racking my brain – WHAT did I come here for? I had like a 20 item list how can I not recall even the most basic item on it.

In cases like that I think of stuff I normally need and pick up like a carton of milk, eggs, breadcrumbs, chicken and then come home to find of course I have these things in spades (which is probably why I thought they might be on the list) but have no dish soap, paper towels or olive oil.

So when I was at CVS on my break I reached for my relatively short shopping list that I had just written at work and realized it was still on my desk, I dejectedly resigned myself to a fruitless trip that would necessitate a later trip to get the things I inevitably forgot on this one.

Only somehow. Miraculously – the list popped into my mind. Shower gel. Body lotion. Air Wick Refill.

It was MAGIC! I knew what I needed without a list in front of me. How could this be?

(Yeah I know it’s a relatively short list but come on! Shower gel is like on the opposite side of the store from the Air Wick refills!)

Smug in my surprising cranial capacity, I gleefully drove back to work ready to tell my coworker, a fellow List Lover, of my feat.

As I walked into my office I hear “So where’s lunch?”.

Ooooooooh.

I was supposed to pick lunch up too, wasn’t I?

And there, on a pink post it on my desk was my little CVS shopping list with PICK UP LUNCH written in capital letters at the bottom.

So I won’t be escaping the list life anytime soon. But hey, one thing at a time right? At least I got my shower gel!