Santa’s little helpers

Another busy day dawns for my daughter at mid-day, but that’s the trouble with jet lag. For some unaccountable reason I am the center of her attention.
“I’m just saying that not only would you reduce your carbon footprint on the planet but you would also, simultaneously, save oodles of time.”
“Hmm. It’s not a very user friendly site.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll set it up for you.” She settles herself in front of the lap top to commence battle. “Before you know it all your shopping will be whizzing it’s way to your doorstep once a week. You won’t have to lift a finger, merely stab a few buttons on the keyboard,” she beams. As usual, I have my doubts. I continue with my chores and mop the downstairs floors except the kitchen, where she is perched, intense with concentration and furrowed brow.
“Mum?”
“Yes dear?”
“How many bananas do you buy a week?”
“About 5 lbs.”
“How much do they usually cost? You want the organic ones right?”
“Hmm.” Do I prefer half eaten very expensive organic bananas strewn around my house rather than cheap ones, as you can slip just as easily on either. I chop onions at the far end of the kitchen and then put them on to sauté softly for fifteen minutes.
“Do you want salted butter or unsalted butter or both?”
“Salted please.”
“You don’t want sweet butter right?”
“Actually, confusingly, sweet butter is salted butter here.”
“What? That’s ludicrous.”
“Just buy Kerrygold, it has the best flavour.”
“Right.”
I nip upstairs to make beds and strip a wet one. On return to the utility room via the kitchen she’s waiting for me.
“Mum?”
“Yes dear?”
“I think I accidentally ordered 11 whole chickens instead of one. This is such a crap system.”
“Don’t press the update button twice.”
“Which would you prefer 10 ounces of frozen spinach for $1:19 or 26 ounces for $1:99.”
“The latter.” I punch the linen into the extra large capacity washing machine which seems to have recently shrunk.
“I don’t get it. All these things are on offer this week. If they’re not on offer again next week then we won’t be able to calculate an average bill for you to work with.”
“You do know that the freezer is still frozen shut…..maybe…….we need to curb the frozen food purchases.”
“Right. What was the other thing you wanted?”
“Why not check the list on the fridge?”
“It’s gone, he took it with him when he went to Trader Joe’s, which is odd as I thought he went Christmas shopping.”
“Hmm.”
“Anything else you can remember?”
“Pastry. Can’t find it anywhere.” I nip out to collect the post from the mail box and cuddle into welcome holiday cards.
“Ah there you are. Why do you keep disappearing?”
“Er…..”
“Just stay where you are for a minute. You should have been searching for ‘pie crusts,’ not pastry.”
“Ah.”
“Anything else?”
“Frosties.” I make a dash for Nonna’s room. Whilst she slumbers in her chair I do a quick tidy, primarily to avoid her breaking her neck on debris when she wakes up. Back in the kitchen I load the dish washer which tips off the ‘tree hugger’ gene, “don’t put them in there, I’ll wash them by hand when I’ve finished this. By the way, you should have been looking for ‘frosted flakes’ not ‘frosties.’ What kind of apples do you want?”
“Fuji. Try not to get too much fresh stuff as the fridge is already bursting.” I skulk off with the vacuum to remove enough pine needles to ignite a small bonfire, possibly spontaneously.
“Mum?”
“Yes dear?”
“You need to put your credit card details in, everything else is done.”
“Oh goody.” I oblige before tottering off to remove the tide mark of paint from the bath tub.
“Mum?”
“Yes dear?”
“What time do you want it delivered tomorrow?”
“Morning.”
“That’s ridiculous. The whole point of this was to spend $200 to get free delivery and now they’re charging us $6:95.”
“Indeed.”
“Damn! The screen’s frozen. I hate your mac.” I escape to the family room to pick up Pokemon and gather overdue library books.
“Mum?”
“Yes dear?”
“Didn’t you realize this coupon for free delivery expired over two months ago?”
“I did.”
“Did what?”
“I did realize it expired a while back, that’s just one of the reasons why I haven’t ordered my groceries on line.”
“Well at least that’s one thing sorted. Between 10 and 12 tomorrow morning we shall have enough food delivered to feed the 5000 for a week, quite effortless don’t you think?” We pause to listen to the roar of the garage door and there he is, just like Santa, laden down with 20 bags of groceries, “just wanted to do my bit for the festive season,” he beams.

I’m tempted to hide in the fridge, but of course it’s already full.

Santa’s little helpers

http://alien-in-a-foreign-field.blogspot.com/2008/12/santas-little-helpers.html