you can't always get what you want

I used to mock my mother because she would go to the store, reach for the Yoplait Strawberry, and end up with Yoplait Strawberry-Banana. (yick.) She'd reach for Windex, and end up with Tilex. One time to my sister's and my delight, she reached for regular Cheerios (only low-sugar cereals in our house, natch) and came home with *Honey Nut* Cheerios. I never understood this--you've identified the product visually, you're moving in for the kill and--you have a hand-spasm while your eyes are closed? A magnetic force in the other product yanks your hand to it and you toss it over your shoulder into the cart? Someone in a Funny Hat walks down the aisle and distracts you? Anyway, in my younger years I had no sympathy for this type of inattention, especially when it produced Straw-bana yogurt.

Last Sunday, I moved in at Susse's and we went to the grocery store to lay in supplies. At the "white-people" grocery store,* I picked up some Cinnamon Toast Crunch. (Due to my childhood deprivation--no sugary cereals--my taste in cereals tends to be rather juvenile.) I had a few bowls throughout the week, and thought they tasted a bit funny. (You already know where this is going!) I hadn't finished the box by the time I moved out of Susse's and into the Silver Cloud Inn with MSH, so I brought Cinnamon Toast Crunch with me, and took it down to the breakfast room with me this morning, because the cereal selection there is bad. This gave me the opportunity to sit in front of the cereal box for the first time all week. I discovered, of course, that I had inadvertently purchased "Reduced Sugar" Cinnamon Toast Crunch--reduced by 75%,! And how do they do it, folks? I won't shock you when I tell you: they put in Splenda instead. The Marmot, she does not approve of the Splenda. Not at all. Skeevy. NO WONDER it tasted not-so-satisfying, by gumbo! I considered just marooning the box on the table in the breakfast room, but I took it with me and drove to work. I will dispose of it later, when I can recycle the box.

This is not the only time this has happened! Only lastnight, we stopped at Walgreen's so MSH could buy a notebook, and I noticed a new flavor of Twix bar at the checkout--Dark Chocolate Twix. How intriguing! Yet, I walked out of the store with regular old Milk Chocolate Twix. Foiled again! Obviously this is part of the aging process, along with forgetting where you're driving and what you're about to say, and blubbering at romantic comedies.

*That's MSH's nomenclature, not mine, so you can take it up with him once he sets up a blog. I don't really see the point--he uses it to distinguish Safeway, for example, from the "hippie grocery store" where I like to shop, but there are just as few or fewer people of color shopping at the hippie co-op grocery store, in my experience, than at Safeway! I guess it means the opposite of exotic or organic--he complains when I buy organic no-hormone, no-antibiotic milk, and wishes I would buy "white-people milk."

***UPDATED TO ADD***
Mink, friend of Marmot in NYC, weighs in on racially-designated milk:
"You might mention to your hubby that 'white-person milk' might more appropriately apply to the organic, non-hormone, etc. type of milk, because it's the white people who can afford to worry about things like that. One might call regular milk 'people of color & people who trust that extra hormones won't give them cancer,etc. ' milk!"

Yes, Mink, but if I were to mention that to him, it would emphasize to him that I AM COMPLAINING ABOUT HIM ON THIS BLOG. He reads it very occasionally, so it's not a secret or anything, but still. One wants to preserve the idea that at least part of the time, one is in raptures about how wonderful one's partner is, and how everything he does is art. I do! There are times! I just don't know if it makes for good blogging, all that mush!