The Grocery List in Someone Else's Handwriting
A grocery list found inside a basket becomes a brief investigation into another person's unusually specific dinner.
Photo: Unsplash.
The list was folded inside the shopping basket beneath mine.
It contained six items:
- Lemons
- Batteries
- The good noodles
- Something green
- Cake, but not sad cake
- Ask about the key
I intended to leave it at the customer-service desk. Instead, I carried it through the store and began seeing the aisles as a puzzle.
“The good noodles” were probably on the top shelf in red packets. “Something green” could be spinach, detergent, or a plant. The bakery had cheerful fruit cakes and several chocolate cakes that looked professionally melancholy.
Near the batteries, a man was searching every pocket of his jacket. I held up the list.
“Is this yours?”
He read it and shook his head. “No, but get the lemon cake. The chocolate one is definitely sad.”
At customer service, the employee recognized the handwriting. Her colleague had written the list before starting a shift and had apparently spent the afternoon asking everyone about a missing key.
The key was taped beneath the cash register. The noodles were indeed the red packets. “Something green” meant coriander.
I left with my own groceries and a slice of lemon cake I had not planned to buy. It was bright, excessively sweet, and not sad at all.