Ok, I lied. I don’t detest the actual shopping part of grocery shopping, at least not most of the time. Pushing the cart around the store and filling it up with tantalizing goodies isn’t really all that awful, if that is, in fact what you’re doing. Most of the time, however, that is not what I’m doing.

Usually I’m carrying on a rather lengthly and somewhat intense inner conversation while I grocery shop. It usually starts within about 30 seconds of hitting the store. The first internal hurdle is which cart to take, and whether wiping it down with one of those stinky wet wipes is worth the potential savings in germs. I’m lazy. I take my chances.

Next I roll over to the produce aisle where I have this stupid little exchange with myself EVERY SINGLE TIME. I tell myself I should be eating more fruits and veggies. I agree with myself, and start to choose delicious fresh fruit and vegetables. No big deal, right? Until I remember that there are shrivelly grapes in the fridge and I just threw away 3 greasy black bananas. I HATE throwing away food, but not as much as I hate food poisoning, so anything even remotely suspect goes straight into the trash.

Unfortunately most of the stuff that ends up in the trash is way beyond suspect. For some reason I can’t quite put my finger on, stuff just kind of sits around at our house. We start something, but never seem to finish it. You can find old cereal, ancient tea bags, mummified frozen raviolis, and other strange and terrifying wonders at my house. It’s not that my home is a breeding ground for experiments, it isn’t. It’s just that some things lose their appeal faster than others. Oreos, for example, rarely occupy cupboard space for more than 2 to 3 days max. Often their stay is considerably shorter. But I haven’t been buying Oreos. I’ve been buying fruit and beans and low fat yogurt and sandwich thins. For some reason those items seem to linger.

The trip to the grocery store just underscores the futility of my efforts. I try to buy things that are good for me, but I don’t really enjoy them, so far too often I end up eating out and throwing them away. There’s a great deal of guilt involved with the whole exercise. I waste food, I waste money, and I don’t eat what I know I ought to. Yet, I do it again and again, because you have to buy food, right?

I need to take a step back, plan out meals again (yes, I do have this skill, and I also have months worth of e-meals if I don’t feel like doing it myself), and shop accordingly. But man, that’s a lot of work! And like I said, I’m lazy.

Enough ranting for one night. Time to suck it up and start that grocery list. Tomorrow I go in, and I want to be prepared.