The Silken Tent
My Letter to the World
June 2000

 

June 2, 2000
Friday

Ordinarily when I get to the Giant (our local supermarket, which in my fiction is always the RealSave), I grab the first shopping cart I come to. I’m one of those neighborly types who will wait while someone finishes unloading and then take her cart along with me. (Unless it’s raining, and that’s more to avoid a wet cart than a wet self.) Given a choice and time to deliberate, however, I’ll pick the cart that has a discarded shopping list caught under the seat pad of the child carrier or stuck between the bars on the bottom.

I find them on note paper distributed by pharmaceutical companies, backs of envelopes, and sheets torn from spiral composition books. Rarely do I find fancy Hallmark-type paper labeled Shopping List, with the needs written on lines sprinkled with butterflies and birds, or a Day-Timer printed checklist.

I always read the lists I find, and some of them I save. A recent one had obviously been prepared by the woman of the house for use by someone else. “I really need...” it began, and some of the items had the location noted (“Skippy SuperChunk...over by the eggs”). “Water in bottles for Megan’s lunch” had been crossed out, but “sun-dried tomatoes not
in oil” had a big star beside it, and the “not in oil” was underlined twice.

On my refrigerator there actually is a magnetic-backed fancy list. I bought it when we were first married, because of the theme. It’s a Sandra Boynton design, and it shows drawings of two well-known composers with the title “Chopin Liszt.” We use it mostly to note things we’re low on, which is why the fifty sheets have lasted almost seventeen years.

Ron has always made a game of using what elementary teachers call “invented spellings” to make his notations. Right now our list says we need “sawlt, ahliv oyal, payper towlz, log kabbin surp.” My sister, a reading specialist, saw the list once and inquired, sotto voce, if Ron had a spelling disability.

There is one list I’ve had for more than ten years. I found it just before school started, and for some reason it caught my interest. It really isn’t remarkable -- it calls for milk, bread, eggs, cat food, “spagi noodle,” and “towelet paper.” I managed to use it dozens of times in all kinds of writing lessons -- creating a character, devising meals that might be developed from the items, drawing conclusions about the people who will use the things (they have a cat, evidently, and kids, because they also need diapers and Froot Loops). I used it myself at Cape May this winter. You can read the result at: "She Prepares For the Weekend."

Today I found one that made me laugh, because it took me back to a world I only visit now. Even before I picked it up I could see it wasn’t an ordinary grocery list. Instead of words, it had mostly figures. It was done in blue ink, but there were notations in red.

It was someone’s algebra paper -- ten problems numbered 16 through 25. All but two were right. (I know this because they were marked that way.) When I picked it up, I noticed that it was folded several times at the bottom and was heavy there.

As I unfolded it, bits of brown fibrous material fell out. At the last turn, two cigarettes, one smoked about a third of the way down, dropped into my hand.

I can visualize the scene well enough to use it in a short story. He takes three cigarettes from the pack he keeps in his locker, rips a paper out of his notebook, makes his little pouch, and sticks the thing in his shirt pocket. Part way through his next class, when the lecture is through and the students have been set to working new problems, he raises his
hand.

“Mrs. D, can I go to the lav?”

He stops at the door and bends to scribble on the signout sheet, using his free hand to keep the contents of his pocket from spilling. The matches are already in the bathroom, wedged behind the third sink, which wobbles a little. He enjoys the first smoke, and starts on the second, but part way through he is either interrupted, or he remembers that he doesn’t have enough to get through the rest of the day if he uses this one now, or (an
outside possibility) he doesn’t want to call attention to himself by being gone too long.

He stubs it out carefully against a water drop, rolls it and its companion back into the carrying device, replaces it in his pocket, and returns to class, hoping he doesn’t have to ask the teacher for individual help. This one’s been known to spray Lysol around a kid’s desk if she thinks he’s fouling her air.

Been there.

Done that.

And tonight I am writing this instead of attending commencement.

(Previous -- Next)
Letters 2000
Archive of 1999 Letters
 Back to the Title Page

This journal updates irregularly.
To learn when new pieces are added, join the Notify List.

 The contents of this page are © 2000 by
Margaret DeAngelis.

Love it? Hate it? Just want to say hi? Click on my name above.