Blue Box Blues
Summer, 1952
She could kill her husband!
For the sixth straight week, Dotty mumbled the same threat as she made out her grocery list. Ever since Carl had quit his job with Mr. McGivver, she’d wracked her brain to find ways to make ends meet. Now, light flickered at the end of the tunnel. He’d recently started a new job as an auditor with the IRS, but he had to work two weeks before receiving his first paycheck. Which meant two more weeks of creative cooking and doctoring meals. Then she could start buying better cuts of meat. Actually, she could start buying meat again.
She scoured the ads in the paper for sales and thanked her lucky stars her garden produced enough vegetables so that she didn’t have to buy any. She dreamed of someday planting flowers, instead of nothing but things her family could eat.
Roses were one of her favorites, and she intended to have several varieties. She could picture climbing roses twined around a trellis in the backyard. Under her kitchen window was one of the places she intended to plant flowers. She hadn’t decided what kind yet; she just wanted to be able to open the window and smell their fragrance as she washed the dishes.
Okay, enough daydreaming. The grocery list wouldn’t write itself, and she needed to be ready as soon as Amanda woke up from her nap. She had her mother’s casserole recipes and plenty of vegetables to use as a basis for a lot of meals, so she only needed to buy some alternatives for meat to round them out.
Thank God food rationing had ended six years ago. She wasn’t sure how she would’ve managed back then. But during those turbulent times, she’d learned how to can fruits and vegetables and helped her mother make jams and jellies.
Dotty’s pantry was still stocked with vegetables she’d canned last fall. But her supply had dwindled, and she hoped that her garden produced enough during the coming months to stock up again for next winter.
She folded her grocery list and tucked it into her purse, along with the sales ad. A cry of “Mama” floated down the hallway, so her daughter was awake. She went to Amanda’s bedroom and found her standing in her crib, her arms outstretched.
“Well, young lady, wanna go shopping with mama?” Dotty checked her baby’s diaper to see if she needed changing. Finding her still clean as a whistle, she picked her up and walked over to the closet. “So, what should we wear on our outing?”
Fifteen minutes later, Dotty had donned her hat and gloves and Amanda was dressed and strapped in her stroller. She grabbed her purse, and they headed for the “Grand Union,” three blocks away. This new neighborhood store had been a blessing. She no longer had to wait for Carl to come home from work to take her shopping. One of these days, she promised herself, she’d learn to drive.
When they arrived at the store, there weren’t many shoppers and the area set aside for locals to park their strollers and baby carriages only held a few. She picked up Amanda and placed her in the little seat of the nearest shopping cart. Before starting her trek down the aisles, she took out the ad and her grocery list.
As she slowly pushed the cart, she double-checked the price marked with the one in the ad. Sometimes they didn’t mark the items with the sale price, and she didn’t realize it until after she’d returned home. By then it was too much trouble to go back. Normally, the difference didn’t amount to much, but when you were pinching pennies, you needed every cent.
She found several unadvertised sales and stocked up on cans of Spam, pork and beans, and soups. After tossing a box of Ivory Snow in the basket, she headed down the cereal aisle. Amanda liked Cheerios, and since she’d been such a good girl on this trip and hadn’t fussed, Dotty splurged on a box and let her daughter snack on them while they finished shopping.
While Amanda munched on Cheerios, Dotty trudged to the last item on her list. She was so tired of this one staple that she had to force herself to go down the aisle.
She closed her eyes, steeled her back, and took a deep breath. ‘Okay, Dotty, you can do this.’ When she opened her eyes and reached for a box, her fingers collided with a small hand. A little boy had stretched as far as he could out of his cart, almost climbing over the handlebar, and he was about to tumble face first onto the floor.
“Oh My Gosh! You’re gonna fall.” Dotty grabbed him under his arms to keep him from toppling out of the cart.
“Young man, what do you think you’re doing?” A man placed his hand on the boy’s shoulder, pushing him back into a sitting position. “I can’t take my eyes off you for a minute, can I, Lee? I’m sorry, I forgot my manners. Thank you for averting an accident. I see what he wanted.” He pointed to the blue boxes on the shelf. “It’s his favorite food right now. He says ‘yuk’ to almost everything else. His mother and I don’t know what we’re going to do with him.” He tousled his son’s hair.
Dotty smiled and tweaked the little boy’s nose. “My daughter loves it, too.”
“I guess all children do. Here you go.” He handed her a couple of boxes and placed a few in his own cart.
“Thank you.”
“Nice talking to you. We’d better go find my wife and mother, before they send the troops looking for us.”
Dotty laughed. It was nice to see a father and son shopping. It was a rare sight. He pushed the cart away, and the little boy waved goodbye.
“Wave bye-bye, sweetheart,” she told her daughter and returned the wave. Instead, Amanda smiled and shoved a soggy Cheerio back into her mouth. “We’re going to have to work on your manners, young lady.”
She waited till he’d turned the corner at the end of the aisle, then sighed and grabbed several more blue boxes.
When they were back on their feet financially, Dotty vowed she’d never buy a box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese again. Well, maybe she would since Amanda did like it, but it wouldn’t be very often.
The End
Story Notes:
Disclaimer: Scarecrow and Mrs. King and its characters belong to WB and Shoot the Moon Productions. No infringement is intended. This is written for entertainment purposes only. Please do not redistribute or reproduce this story without my permission.
Thanks: Rita and Miss Edna, you make my stories readable by catching all my grammar and other errors. Charlie and Lynda, for giving me the idea to have a five-second meeting in a grocery store.
Thanks: Rita and Miss Edna, you make my stories readable by catching all my grammar and other errors. Charlie and Lynda, for giving me the idea to have a five-second meeting in a grocery store.