A few days ago, a coworker showed us a site where we could enter our blog address to find out the language level of our blog. It appears all of my college education has come to naught. You only need an elementary school education to comprehend this site. I was all set to write a post bragging about my brilliance and superior vocabulary, but that wouldn’t be any fun. Instead, I offer this nugget of wisdom.

The elementary school across the street from us has a recycling Dumpster for newspapers. We use it often because we seldom have paper bags to stuff the newspapers into as the city requires for curbside recycling. I was on my way out to run some errands, so I grabbed the big bin that we keep our newspapers in and stuck it in the trunk. There was a little overflow though, so I found a Whole Foods shopping bag and crammed the rest in there. I decided I would drop off the papers after running my errands because school was about to get out for the day and I didn’t want to battle the traffic.

I went out and ran my errands, which included stopping at Whole Foods to pick up ingredients for a nice dinner. I usually shop at H-E-B, but Whole Foods was more convenient, so I splurged.

On my way home, I made the planned stop at the recycling Dumpster and grabbed the Whole Foods shopping bag. After I dumped the papers in the bin, I had the slightest nagging feeling. The bag had felt lumpy. I peered into my car’s trunk. The bag with the newspapers was still there. I stared into the empty Whole Foods bag in my hand. No. No. Not possible.

I ran back over to the Dumpster and peered down. One lemon. One container of gnocchi. One bag of spinach and another of frozen peas. A container of tangerine soda in a glass bottle that had miraculously survived the fall. One carton of cream. I looked at the warning on the side of the Dumpster. “Do not place the following in this container: Cardboard, Plastic, Glass.” They sure as hell weren’t going to know what to do with my acorn squash.

The Dumpster had a small opening, which was where I had poured out the contents of the bag, but it was too small for me to crawl through. I would have to open the lid on top and jump into the Dumpster. I tried to throw open the lid, but it was fairly heavy, and given that the Dumpster was six feet high, it was difficult for me to even reach the lid. I stopped to think. Even if I could get the lid open, would I be able to hoist myself into the Dumpster? I thought about driving home to get our little three-step ladder, but what if I got in there and couldn’t get back out. The Dumpster offered a stern warning not to play on it or in it. This wasn’t play though.

I started laughing helplessly. This was flat-out the stupidest thing I had even done. I had three options. I could forget about the food and save my pride, but I wasn’t willing to do that because then I would have to make another trip to the store. I could try my Dumpster diving plan, which might result in my becoming trapped. Or I could call Greg. This would result in humiliation so deep that I might never recover.

I called anyway. I could barely get the words out I was laughing so hard. The tears rolled down. I’m not sure whether they were tears of joy or pain. I had to repeat myself because Greg couldn’t understand amidst the giggles and sobs. What a terrible thing to repeat.

Greg came home from work because I told him the carton of cream wouldn’t survive otherwise, and he rescued our dinner. Hoorah for Greg! I’m going to cry in a corner now. Bye.

When I was a kid, my dad would sometimes take me to the grocery store during the wee hours of the morning. Like most kids, I preferred sleeping, but I could be coaxed out of bed with the promise of a stack of chocolate chip pancakes at a local restaurant. (As if the chocolate weren’t enough, they were always buried in whipped cream. Yum!)

I didn’t understand why we had to go so early, but now that I’m an adult I understand the pain that is the weekend grocery shopping trip. But at 6 in the morning, you can dance down the aisles. One of the most important things I learned during these trips was how to bag groceries. We didn’t go to some fancy schmancy store with baggers, so we had to gather everything ourselves.

In Texas, I do shop at a fancy schmancy store. Or at least, H-E-B is fancy when compared to the stores of my childhood. Not only do they bag my groceries, but they also offer to walk them out to the parking lot and load them in the car for me. I never accept this offer because I’m still young and spry, and if I let other people do all the work for me, I will very quickly lose that spryness.

Yesterday, as I arrived at my car with my cart, one of the H-E-B helpers was on his way back into the store. He was 80 years old if he was a day, and he walked with a bit of a shuffle, probably the result of some old injury that’s now causing arthritis. He insisted on loading my groceries for me.

“You, go pamper yourself,” he said. “Wait in the car while I do this for you.”

Are you kidding me? I’m going to sit in the car while this senior citizen — the guy who really needs pampering — does this work for me? Is this what America has come to? The bratty 20-somethings sit in their plush cars (OK, my car isn’t plush, but I’m imagining here) while the aching seniors do the work.

I continued putting my groceries into the car, though I couldn’t get the senior to stop helping. But I think I at least avoided earning a one-way ticket to hell.