Today a girl in one of my classes was talking to me about one of her friends from home and how his Spring Break was approaching. She was saying how this friend had bought a ticket to Europe 2 days prior and how that day had texted her as he was boarding the plane.
The reason he said he decided to do this was to, “clear his head and to get some real thinking time in”.
If you are like me, and if you are part of me apologizes the other part welcomes another straggler aboard, after hearing this you instantly have three thoughts -
1. Welp.
2. I wish I had the money to clear my head in Europe
3. I wonder if Kroger has the same effect as a trip to Europe
The third is currently ringing true, for me at least.
Kroger has now, in my personal dictionary, become the only place I have time to completely think to myself or debate something simpler than “at what stage are chromosomes and chromatids considered the same thing in meiosis and mitosis?” (p.s. if you know this please send help your girl has a test coming up).
Instead I am able to debate exactly which flavor of GoGo Squeeze I will be purchasing or whether or not that box of Cheez Its will be gone in 1 day or 1 week (usually its the first).
If you are a college student you thrive in this area of decision making and if there was a class titled “What Do You Want from Kroger” you would probably at least get a B in it.
Kroger has become a place of peace, not counting the 10 o’clock PM runs with your suite mates or 10 minute squeeze of a trip between classes, trying to decide/plan your entire career path, and figuring out what the name of your future dog will be. These days I am leaning towards Pumba, Leslie Knope, or Winston(a.k.a. Prank Sinatra)
It is this fact that has made me consider if I am moving too fast or drowning in the sentence of “I’m busy”. As if I am constantly having those “long days” with endless tasks of things I have to do, want to do, and should do because of the high standards I am holding myself accountable to.
So to put stillness in those days I do as any reasonable person would - I go to Kroger.
I wander up and down the aisles to add a sense of familiar simplicity to my “long day”, and to buy all the things my mother told me I couldn’t all those years.
In Kroger there is a silence beneath the children looking for their mothers and college students purchasing Red Bull. It ends up calming you down.
I know what you are thinking, what if I don’t have a Kroger. Do not fear any chain of grocery stores from Target to Jewel Osco to Winn Dixie will suffice.
I will admit that some of my biggest life decisions have been made inside a grocery store and I feel it will continually be a place where, amongst families rushing to get home and cook dinner and that friend on a way to a birthday party who is just now going to get the present, that I remember to slow down.
So basically what I am saying is never spend money to go to Europe when you can meander into the closest grocery store. That is all. You’re welcome for saving you dollar bills.