Shopping with Ma

Time has come to figure out what to write for next week’s post. Once I get one done and sent to my editor, it’s time for the next, which will probably mean I’ll stay awake half the night “thinking”.

This time I have been rescued by my son, God bless him. Undoubtedly, it’s thanks to the god of the Etruscans since that’s the one he feels closest to.

This morning I enlisted him and his van to take some friends who don’t have a car (you really don’t need one if you live up here in Orvieto and are happy not to have one) to the medical establishment down at the foot of the cliff, the Abbadiamedica.  Obviously we are in Italy for where else would you go to an abbey for a specialist medical visit.  My friends are relative newcomers to Orvieto and their doctor says they need to see a specialist.

Beautiful weather as we drive through the fall countryside where the grapes have already been picked, as well as the olives, and the trees are changing color. The Badia isn’t really far but you do need a car to get there.  I help them maneuver the unfamiliar Italian bureaucracy and guess behind  which door the doctor they are looking for Is concealed, and then suggest to my son that since the supermarket is right next door we do a bit of grocery shopping while we wait. He insists though  that we take my friends home first before accompanying  me to the supermarket. 

Our excursion lasts longer than I thought and I almost miss my luncheon date. Upon returning home, I find the following in my e-maii box.

“I think it’s a matter of genes ,” my son wrote.” I’m not that way, my brother is. The ordeal of the supermarket sends me into a spin.

Good thing we took your friends back home before going shopping. If they had had to wait outside we would have found them like Rameses, “mummified”.

My ma reassures me she has a list of what she needs …sure, but I know better. It’s just a bluff. Once in, she confides that it is only a “general” list which means there are a few specific things but it is by no means definitive.

Let the procession begin. It’s like the procession of Corpus Domini when everyone shows up for the celebration. The trumpets sound, the drums roll. We process up the aisle, me pushing the cart since my mom needs to hang on to her cane. Past the bread, the fruit is on the other side. The avocados seem good, ripe enough for tonight.  Every so often she stops, in the middle of the aisle, touches a couple of packages (they’re all the same, ma) and then she leaves them on the shelf.

The shoes bought two years ago from the Brothers on the Corso move slowly along. I’ll get the celery at the market tomorrow – it’s fresher. The potatoes, only if they’re the small ones. Now let’s find he bleach. Has to be of the gentle kind, and the laundry soap – not that big one, it’s too heavy –  the smaller one.  I give up. Now where is the ice cream without bits of nuts or chocolate? ˙ We pass the speciality department and Christmas is already there with marzipan and cookies in the shape of angels.  At last the cart rolls on, creaking, towards the checkout as a friendly voice booms out over the loudspeaker that check out four is closing. No, it opens again and I move forward with my mother in tow, figuring that’s finally it. My mother will undoubtedly pay with her debit card, it won’t take long and I hope she’ll remember her PIN.  But no, she pulls out a couple of bills from her bag, folded in four –  maybe it’s a magic number – and then hunts for her change purse since she knows the clerks will always ask her if she has a few odd coins.  When she can’t find the right amount, back it goes into that black hole of her purse. The two elderly ladies, their carts overflowing, waiting in line behind her are impatiently eyeing cash register number five, hoping it will open.”

“Thank you, Claudio, you’ve been so patient today.”

“Thank you, ma, for teaching me what it’s like to go slow, like in “slow food,”  that serves as inspiration. But next time we go shopping, remind me to bring along a snack and something to drink.”

Come to think of it, going shopping can also be an experience, a journey to another world. Even if you have trouble walking, all those countries and places are there for the asking, or let’s say are only a few steps away.   Right there where you can touch and smell, and perhaps even taste them.

Some people have taken a trip around their room. I’ll take a trip around the supermarket, thank you.