When You Get What You Pay For

Last week I stopped at a local market to pick up something for supper and decided to try the new homemade soup at the deli counter. Turkey chili was on special, and I figured I could stretch a quart container into a family meal by serving it over baked potatoes. (That way I'd still have room in the food budget for necessities, like chocolate-chunk ice cream...) The deli employee scooped out my soup, weighed the container and slapped on a label before turning to the next customer while she slid my chili backhand across the counter.

Nudged out of line by impatient shoppers behind me, I stared at my container of soup for a long time. Was it my new bifocals, or had I entered some alternate universe where kidney beans were stewed in liquid gold? The price sticker on the lid read $118.48, more than my entire weekly budget and certainly more than I wanted to pay for one quart of something I usually just make at home with some frozen meat and a can opener.

Also, for that price I could have bought 39 half-gallons of premium ice cream.

What to do? Abandon it on the counter and run? Wait in line to complain? Or just count it as an unexpected weight-loss opportunity and savor a spoonful each meal until next payday? Imagine how slim I'd be after a week without ice cream!

Recently a novice goat-owner asked for advice about finding inexpensive fencing to contain her two furry kids (one of whom had already leaped out of their 6-foot high temporary enclosure). Here's the answer I didn't give - if you want inexpensive, you got the wrong pets. This I know for sure...my next pet is a turtle. What I learned from another friend is this:

Pet turtles will hibernate all winter long in a tank on your kitchen counter - you don't even have to feed them!! I was so jealous when I heard this I'm pretty sure I turned green just talking to her. Not that I really want Emerson and Elliot lounging on my kitchen counter all winter (picture that!), but if I could just close up the shed before Christmas and have them awaken in the spring...

Anyway, just finished writing another check to the vet and need to make a trip to the grocery store...oranges, animal crackers, vinegar, baking soda, sunflower seeds, antibiotic cream...maybe once I get everything on the goats' list, I can still buy something for myself!