Milk Eggs Vodka

by Bill Keaggy

  But I LIKE chips with my sandwich!!!

  As of 2002, supermarkets employed almost 3.5 million Americans.

  If you don’t get the cereal with the car on the box, little Billy will throw a tantrum and the world will end. So get the cereal with the car on the box.

  I’m sure this list was made by wife, for husband, with notes on what aisles to find certain items in. Because that husband is like me, and in the past he has come home from the store and said, “They didn’t have any scotch tape or sauerkraut,” and he got in trouble, and both husband and wife learned a valuable lesson.

  Not quite an insult: “You eat swollen ovaries.” All fruit starts as an ovary on a flowering plant.

  I love you too. Don’t forget the applesauce.

  I am not so sure this list should have been labeled “food.”

  Supermarket sales totaled nearly $500 billion in 2005.

  De nada.

  Speaking of “wiggle eyes,” don’t forget about that snail!

  Go figure: Mouse-flavored cat food was tested on focus group cats but they didn’t like it.

  Jeez, how many hands does this person have?

  Kraft Macaroni & Cheese Dinner debuted in 1937.

  This list begs the question: Why do you want your cat to have tartar?

  About 2,500 known varieties of apples are grown in the U.S., but just fifteen varieties account for more than 90% of production. More than 7,500 varieties are grown worldwide.

  Translation: “Mom, I know I am a self-centered brat sometimes and I usually think you’re an old bag who doesn’t understand me and I frequently post to my blog about how much I hate you but would you please get me some raspberries when you go to the store even though you always tell me that they’re really expensive please please please mommy I love you?”

  It took almost fifty years after canned foods debuted for someone to invent the can opener.

  4. PAAAR-Ty! this list was made for partyin’

  Vodka wins. The Cold War is over and Russia won. Americans prefer vodka to all other alcoholic beverages. At least according to your grocery lists. Personally, I don’t believe it. I think most Americans don’t write down all the booze they buy on their lists. They get it every time, just like milk and bread. But when they do write it down, vodka wins. Then beer. Whatever the case, the party list is always a cherished find. I love seeing how people have fun. Or at least I love seeing the fuel that leads to the fun.

  Why, that’s the most un-American drinking party that I ever blacked out at.

  The lamest party ever.

  Dairy products account for 29% of the food consumed in the U.S.

  Do you remember that scene in the film Blue Velvet? Yeah, I remember it.

  New Jersey has a spoon museum with more than 5,000 spoons from every state and almost every country in the world.

  Let me repeat that: Buns, vodka, wine, chips, vanilla ice cream and … kitty litter.

  Definition of bolus: The ball of food that your mouth and tongue form while chewing.

  They must have started drinking already. Why get lime juice and limes?

  It doesn’t seem like it would’ve been that crazy of a party—but look closer: Fire damage!

  Knives have been used since pre-history and spoons came along around 25,000 years ago Forks date to the ancient Greeks, but didn’t become popular until the 16th or 17th century.

  Them: “Hi. Would you like to come to my boring party?” Me: “Not if you’re serving ‘scrimps.’”

  The best temperature for scooping ice cream is 8 to 12° F but it should be stored at 0 to -10° F to maintain its texture.

  Put the beer, fruit and ice in Ziploc baggies, shake it, and you can take the party anywhere. It’s like portable redneck Sangria.

  Ain’t nothin’ goes better together than hot dogs and champagne!

  On average, for every dollar you spend in a restaurant you get $.27 worth of food.

  Just because you’re all alone it doesn’t mean you can’t get a party goin’ on! You just need the right supplies.

  Honey is the only human-consumable food that will never go bad.

  5. SAD GROCERY LISTS

  sobbing over your shopping

  Some lists just tear me up. It might be because they just feature things so nutrient-deficient that the items in question shouldn’t even count as food. It might be because these lists are tiny windows into strangers’ lives that we can’t help but look into. You see new homes being organized, older homes that have come apart and children growing up. You see bad diets, loneliness and sickness. But let’s not dwell on the sad things in life—let’s poke fun at them!

  Oh, where to start? Quick—someone call Moose Charities and get this person some help!

  Wow. Your life sucks, my friend. Constipation, headaches, aching gums, kids with knotted hair. No wonder you’re depressed.

  For every dollar you spend on supermarket produce, just $.05 goes to the farmer who grew it.

  Not strictly a grocery list (see, they needed lemons), but a self-improvement kind of list. I wonder how they are doing these days, and if they ever made it to Kentucky (or got new underwear).

  Just 2% of beef submitted for grading is judged “Prime,” being the most tender and flavorful of cuts. Most of it goes to the restaurant industry. About 45% is graded “Choice” and is what is commonly sold in grocery stores.

  This list is from California, obviously.

  I hope they had enough money.

  Americans drink 2.6 times more alcohol per capita than Russians.

  The Little Things

  The grocerylists.org web site is a pretty lighthearted undertaking. Sometimes I blog about organic farming or new food label guidelines, but that’s as serious as it gets. Whenever I’m interviewed about this collection, I try to explain how I enjoy seeing small parts of peoples’ lives. I am fascinated by the mundane, the forgotten, the rundown and the lost. It’s difficult to explain and I usually don’t do that great of a job.

  But last year I got an e-mail from someone that truly touched on why I value these lists. Usually, our grocery lists are very ephemeral, very unimportant. Much like the one right here that Cindy Stewart from Boise, Idaho, made, probably sometime in early 1985.

  Anyway, this is the e-mail I got, with permission to reproduce it here:

  Hi. This is the last list my sister made before she was killed on March 15, 1985. Since her birthday is tomorrow (Jan 15, 1959) I thought I’d send it in. She was the victim of a jealous lover. She was a wonderful person, though—a big partier, very social—happy. I think the list was in the ashtray of her car, which is why it was all wadded up. I don’t know why I saved it. I guess I just didn’t want to let any of her go.

  Teresa

  Boise, Idaho.

  Dieters say cheese is the most difficult food to give up. Americans eat 28 pounds of it per year.

  Even create-a-Meal and TV dinners have to come out. You eat, wipe your mouth, then wipe your butt. It’s the cycle of life.

  You gotta have soul to get through tough times. Pine Soul. It’s obvious someone starting a new home, with a new baby, made this list. I hope they’re doing OK. And I hope the school the mom went to has been demolished.

  Green beans are the most popular pod bean in the U.S. Lima beans win for most popular shell bean.

  Don’t make me repeat myself, young man! Oh, wait …

  Certain carbohydrates in beans are a source of flatulence. Anasazi beans contain less than 25% of these gas-causing carbs.

  I can just picture the nice lady who wrote this. Her husband died and her children moved away. She goes to the grocery to get some food and a “Miss You” card.

  Americans consume the equivalent of nineteen teaspoons of sugar every day, mostly in processed beverages and food.

  This must be a shopping list for Jim Jarmusch’s new film, Formula and Cigarettes. If not, I feel sorry for that poor baby. Stop smoking, bad mom!

  Natural vanilla flavoring comes from orchids. />
  (BACK)

  (FRONT)

  This list looks normal enough: Polish the silver for a little get-together and have some snacks on the nice new tablecloth. But wait, what’s on the other side of this list? Oh my God! It’s a do-over! They have to open the grave and have another wake for the do-over.

  “Sprinkle with pepper and serve” is the last step in a recipe for diced pork and apples from the world’s oldest surviving cookbook, De Re Coquinaria (“On Cookery”), attributed to the 1st-century Roman, Apicius.

  6. BADD SPELLRS

  the sorry state of America’s education system

  Wow. You people can’t spell. I can spell. Heck, I wrote this book and spellt everything mysefl. But most people can’t spell. At least the ones that write grocery lists.

  Yikes! Almost half the words on this list are misspelled.

  Add a tablespoon of oil to the water when cooking rice so the grains don’t stick together.

  I think this impressive specimen may be the emergence of an alternative version of the English language, rather than just a bunch of misspellings.

  1931: Beech-Nut baby food is introduced.

  “Busquit.” Wins a prize for most pathetic attempt at spelling Bisquick.

  Corn in your corn flakes? Just 8% of the weight in a box of the popular breakfast cereal is corn. The rest is just flake.

  Pork stake? Maybe they’re going to slay some vampire pigs!

  In 1974 Marsh’s Supermarket in Troy, Ohio, first used Universal Product Codes and the accompanying UPC scanners to scan the bar codes, which were patented in 1952.

  While I can appreciate the attempt to provide some visual balance to the word cereal, symmetry is not really important when it comes to spelling.

  One cup of kale provides more than the daily requirement of vitamins A and C. It is also a good source of calcium and fiber.

  “Potatoe.” The Dan Quayle Effect: I’d say that half the population of the U.S. is just as intelligent as the former vice president. And that’s scary.

  Almonds are high in calories and fat but they contain nutrients that help lower cholesterol.

  Tomatos.” The other half of the population is not quite as smart as ol’ Danny boy.

  “Potataoes.” And, sadly, some people are even dumber than the entire population of the U.S. and Dan Quayle.

  Americans consume 50 million pounds of avocados on Super Bowl Sunday, enough to cover a football field to a depth of almost 12 feet.

  Try delicious Creakers, the cracker best enjoyed … in a haunted house! [Cue rimshot sound.]

  Food poisoning kills 5,000 Americans every year and makes at least 70,000,000 ill in some way. Eggs, unwashed produce and rotten meat get most of the blame.

  Popcycles. They’re cold—and fast!

  It’s bad enough that you drink so much soda, but at least throw the bottles in the trash when you’re done!

  Nancy Green played the part of Aunt Jemima for thirty years until a car accident ended her life in 1923.

  BANANAS MAKE YOU STUPID

  Here, compiled for the first time ever, are the words that give Americans the most trouble when making a grocery list. Take a look. This chapter contains undeniable evidence that bananas make you stupid.

  Most frequently misspelled words on America’s grocery lists:

  1. Banana (banna, bananna, etc.)

  2. Tomato (tomatoe) vs. tomatoes (tomatos)

  3. Yogurt (yogert, yougart, etc.)

  4. Potato (potatoe) vs. potatoes (potatos)

  5. Mayonnaise (mayonase, mayonaisse, etc.)

  6. Spaghetti (spagetti, spegeti, etc.)

  7. Margarine (margrine)

  8. Broccoli (brocolli)

  9. Carrots (carrotts)

  10. Raspberries (rasberries)

  11. Marshmallows (marshmellows)

  12. Hamburger (hamberger)

  13. Sausage (sausuage)

  14. Chili (chilli)

  15. Prescription (perscription)

  16. Pickles (pickels) 17. Paper (papper)

  18. Popsicles (popcicals)

  19. Febreze (Fabreeze)

  20. Sauce (sause)

  “Bnana.” I tallied your bnana and it’s time for you to go home!

  In Blue Hill, Nebraska, no female wearing a “hat that would scare a timid person” can be seen eating onions in public.

  “Bannas.” No, sorry. Maybe if you’re a three-year-old.

  “Bannes.” And there’s no “E” in “dumbass,” either.

  Most foods take three to four hours to digest, but white rice has such a low fiber content it only takes one hour.

  “Banans.” So close, yet so stupid.

  “Bannans.” The extra “N” doesn’t quite make up for the missing “A.” Try again.

  Bananas do not grow on trees. The banana plant is a gigantic herb.

  “Banansns?” Hmmm. They knew they didn’t get it right the first time, so they made sure to screw it up royally the second time.

  One of the few words in the English language where you actually have options—ketchup or catsup—and you have to go and be like, “No, I want to spell it my way.”

  Americans eat 30 pounds of bananas a year, per capita.

  No doubt about it, mayonnaise is difficult to spell.

  Bartlett pear trees can produce fruit even when they are more than 100 years old.

  Toga shells. They must be having a toga party.

  Americans eat an average of fifteen pounds of beans in a year.

  “Yogert.” It seems like that could be correct, but it’s not. Loser.

  “Yohurt.” The losers are all standing to my left. Go join them.

  1923: Sanka is introduced.

  “Yogart.” It seems slightly more likely that this could be correct, but it’s still not. Loser.

  Dannon Yogurt first added fruit to commercially produced yogurt in the U.S. in 1947

  “Yougart.” And YOU are a loser too.

  It is the greener (or whiter) asparagus that are more tender, not the thinner ones.

  AT LEAST THEY SPELLED MSG RIGHT

  Worst speller ever? Someone new to the English language? Just a person having fun with the mundane task of grocery shopping? Or a cruel joke played on the dorky guy that collects lost grocery lists? You be the judge.

  One lemon or lime equals about three tablespoons of juice.

  Doh! You got the hard ones right: Potatoes, yogurt, bananas. But you totally screwed up vinegar. And beans.

  I have to give them credit. They realized their mistake and fixed it.

  Cherries should be stored at 35° F but taste best if eaten at room temperature.

  Sauguage. Sog wedge. Sowgooedge. Sawgwegge. So many possibilities!

  Estimates of the number of bison in North America before white civilization encroached ranges from 30-60 million. By 1890 there were less than 1,000, most having been killed for sport.

  If I were going to spell tortilla phonetically, I’d go with “torteeuh.”

  America’s per capita consumption of beef is about sixty-five pounds per year.

  When you think about it, this is a genius idea. Why not combine the two sorry tasks of cleaning your bowels and cleaning your toilet bowls. Use Toilet Bowel Cleaner!

  “Smimply Orange?” Smimply smtupid.

  The Washburn Crosby Company created Betty Crocker in the 1920s to answer letters from customers.

  7. THE GROCER’S APOSTROPHE

  not just for grocers anymore

  Like New Coke, the grocer’s apostrophe is part of the dustbin of grocery history. Most stores are owned by large corporations with graphic guidelines and professionally produced signage. But in ancient times (the last 100 years), owners and employees of local groceries would hand-letter signs for sales and specials every day. Inevitably, they used apostrophes when pluralizing. Oh, the good old days. These days, some shoppers work hard to keep the grocer’s apostrophe alive—while grammar teachers everywhere weep quietly in dark rooms.