Better in Bulk

     For those of you who have been following my Facebook posts, you will notice that I recently made a wise investment in a rather large case of “Kirkland Light Beer”, a cleverly named light lager for the thrifty deadbeat dad who might still want to maintain his “peaked in high school” physique. That is, by the way, my favorite Rob Lowe.

     While I like a lot of things about living on the East Coast, I have made no secret about my misgivings. The main thing is the insanely high cost of living. My co-workers, who all grew up in New England are probably very tired of me talking about how cheap it is to live in Iowa, or how I rented a four bedroom house in Texas for a lot less than my current apartment. We have kicked around the idea of buying, but I can’t stomach buying a 100 year old non-insulated shack for $500,000.

     This all being said, my husband and I both have good jobs. We do fine, but we have to stick to our budget more than we have before. We have a weekly amount we set aside for groceries, and I stick to that amount. I decide what we need for the week and some items might get pushed to next week. Basically, this means weekly trips to Costco to buy a few things, instead of buying a whole bunch of crap when I feel it. Oh, a cube of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese? Some may ask why, I ask why not? Not a good way of thinking, because there are several reasons why not. But a few strong reasons why…

     Costco is great for certain things. We get meat, frozen food, cleaning supplies, paper products, and another items that are non-perishable that we are sure to use, but the main thing I have been getting there lately is their alcohol. Yes, it is at a good price, but there is a large convenience factor. In Massachusetts, you cannot buy beer, liquor, or wine at any grocery store, you have to go to a separate liquor store. And since it is an established fact that my husband and I enjoy our cocktails from time to time, this is kind of a frequent inconvenience. Between Costco, the regular grocery store, the liquor store, and the market where we get our produce (it’s amazing), and any other random items I might need, running errands can take a full day.

     And no, they do not have Wal-Mart here. I know, where can you find all the Wal-Mart creatures? Well here, they are de-centralized, and everywhere. It’s hard not having Wal-Mart. Where can you go to feel a little better about yourself? Well, there are several places I could mention in another post but at the end of this entry, maybe you’ll find yourself behind me in line at Costco.

     In the scheme of wine and spirits retail, Costco is a little bit of a loophole. They have a wine and spirits “section” that is inside the store. So, you go over there and make a separate transaction.

     A couple of weeks ago Josh was accompanying me on my errands, which is rare. We were in Costco strolling around the wine and spirits store and were just about to leave when I saw a box of Irish beers. I pointed it out to him and he shrugged his shoulders, then smiled.

      “I don’t know…It might be a little too classy for us” he said. “Are you sure you don’t want the Kirkland Light Beer?”

       I laughed. “Oh you noticed those?” I said. “I’ve been eyeing those for weeks because I thought they were hilarious, but I kept forgetting to tell you. I’m sure it’s awful.”

      “Um…could be good. The lovely silver packaging and the catchy name…” Josh said sarcastically. Or in a serious tone. I can’t be sure anymore. This is a guy who went through a serious PBR phase in college. I tolerated this for a while, because he was the one buying the beer. But, I drew the line when I woke up one more morning and my stomach felt like it was turning inside out.

      In the end, we decided to splurge and go with the Irish beer collection. We nursed those for a couple of weeks and even make a great beef stew with the Guinness, but last week we were out of beer and I found myself back at Costco getting eggs and turkey bacon. I’m making my rounds in the wine section when I stop then back up a few steps to stare down a silver box of Kirkland Light.

     No, I think, and walk a couple of steps. Then I walk back and contemplate it. It’s one hell of a deal, 48 cans for 21 bucks. It’s like 50 cents a can. I haven’t’ had beer that cheap…ever. Even my first beers snuck at wedding dances in high school were two bucks.

     Don’t do it. My mind says. It’s got to be terrible. You can’t even get a soda for 50 cents and that is made from the cheapest, most unhealthy shit imaginable. This stuff will probably give you cancer. You aren’t in college anymore, what’s the point? This is not the keg shop. This is not a fire sale. You do not know what you are buying.

      Yeah, but how bad can it be? What if it’s surprisingly good? How great would that be? I decide to buy it. If nothing else, I can surprise Josh and we can have a good giggle. I heft the unwieldy box into my cart and stroll to the counter. The kid checking me out is barely 21, so I figure he’s tried it for sure. I mean, he is probably making minimum wage and would be the person this beer is really marketed to, not a childless woman who is pushing 30.

      “So seriously,” I ask. “How bad is this stuff?”

      “I honestly don’t know. I have not tried it,” he says.

      I’m surprised, but I press on. “Oh, I’m sure it’s not great, my expectations are pretty low,” I say. I realize how painfully obvious this must be to the kid, who probably is attending a prestigious school here and has his whole life ahead of him.

      “I’m betting it’s like a Natty Light or something,” he says. Which I feel is fair. I’d like to say it’s been years since I’ve had a Natural product, but I would be lying, unless you are talking about natural like Whole Foods natural. Last year Josh insisted we drink Natural Ice because he had done a cost/benefit analysis on carbs to alcohol content. It was impressive really, how he researched that and made the presentation to me. I kept thinking what a beautiful mix of practicality and white trash principles. There’s a comfort in this. If we ever find ourselves living in a trailer or shanty, it will likely have some ingenious enhancements to it.

      “Anyway,” he continues, “I would likely never get it. I would only get it if I was having a party or something. Those are too many beers for me. I would never be able to drink them all.”

      Ah, instant embarrassment on so many levels and I instinctively lower my head. Because I wasn’t having a party, it was just a normal weekend at home with my husband. I used to be a party throwing kind of a gal, so it’s also sad that I’m not anymore. I realize if this beer is really bad, I can’t just throw it in a cupboard and pawn it off on my friends during a drinking game. Those days are over. I think about confessing this to my young, apparently studious cashier, but I have reached that level of maturity that I can play out these conversations in my head beforehand.

      First I would have to tell him that it’s just me and my husband. Then I would probably tell him that we aren’t crazy boozehounds or anything, but then I would glance three bottles of wine in my cart. Then I would blush and start to stammer about how it’s a lot less than when we were first married and used the kegerator…that we still own…that we registered for in our wedding. I swear we’re not white trash. Oh wait, yeah, I’m still buying this Kirkland Light. But it will probably take a while to drink it. Yeah, we’ll really plug away at it, because we have nothing better to do than sit around and watch ESPN and drink discount beer while our dog barks at the neighbors.

      I have played this all out in my head and have come to the obvious conclusion that nothing I say will really help my “We’re not white trash” case. Some battles you just cannot win. It’s like when one of Josh’s co-worker’s girlfriends moved to Kansas City from California and I was trying my best to convince her we were not white trash. Then Josh sweetly supported my efforts by constantly talking about NASCAR, inviting her to go bowling, and then to a gun show. We went to said gun show. I had to try to explain the entire time that I had never been to a gun show before…even though Josh had…with his dad…when he was junior high. Yeah.

      In any case, I’d been here many times before. I knew were this was headed. Time to get out. I paid for the beer and loaded it in the back of my dirty truck next to a dirty shovel. Damn. Again. I swear I’m not white trash.

      We are still working on the Kirkland Light. While it inevitably pairs well with wings, mild depression and overall failure, it is a lot of beer. We are not in college anymore, nor should we be drinking as such. Josh refers to it as “middle cup beer”, a reference to an old favorite drinking game.

      After a week we still had wine left too, but with another snowstorm coming up, I headed back to good ‘ol Costco tonight. All I needed was some steak and wine for Valentine’s Day. Costco is normally a total cluster fuck on weekends, but Friday nights are tolerable, if you can stand to face the fact that your social life has hit a new low. Tonight, however, I had to park on the end of the massive parking lot by the mountains of snow. The place was packed. I had to wait in line to purchase my sad little package of steaks and then headed to the wine section. Steak and wine. So classy.

      I buzzed through, ignoring the beers and made my way to the counter when I realized it was a complete dead zone in there. There was nobody in the wine and spirits section. Normally I have to wait in a line four people deep.

      I walk up to the cashier, a different kid, but one who looks like he would be more apt to buy Kirkland beer. He and his counterpart were checking out some woman’s ass across the store and not so discreetly making comments about it. So these are my people, I guess. In their defense, this chick did have a pretty great ass.

      Anyway, I say to one of them, “Where the hell is everybody? The parking lot is full but no one is in here. What are these people buying?”

      “Stocking up for the storm,” the kid said

      “Um..yeah, so am I,” I point to my wine. Which, of course, includes Black Box. Hey, it’s won awards.

      The other kid smirked. “Bread and milk,” he says. “The essentials?”

       I have neither in my cart. To be fair, I have them at home. But apparently I’m the only one out of the hundreds of people at Costco who considers wine an essential. Come on, wine and a blizzard? That's how babies are made. I wouldn't know, but I saw that on a Hallmark card once. I’d bet half the people in the store were conceived that way. On a rational level, I realize there many people making their way toward the wine section as I’m thinking this, and this is merely bad timing, but in the moment it makes me feel awkward.

      My cashier bails me out. “It was busy before. It comes in waves.”

      Sure, buddy. Thanks.

      But, I go to the next grocery store and see people almost getting into car accidents as they fight for parking spots, or the lady bringing 50 items to the express lane, or the person who does not even acknowledge or thank me when I hold the door open for them. I think maybe I’m not so trashy. It’s all about perspective. I pick up some grocery store wings and sushi without shame, because some people drink Kirkland Light, some people are Kirkland Light. Which is nasty. Nasty is what it is.

Pulling Pigs

      Since I have last blogged I have lived in two cities, Houston and now Boston. I must say, Boston is very different than any other place I have lived. Most of the cities I have lived in have been in the Midwest. Even Houston has that Midwestern feel to it even though it has a lot of other elements going, from its ethnic diversity and old south undertones. And, in all places, I was never more than 20 minutes from farmland (in Houston I lived in a southern suburb that was very close to the edge of “town”).

     In Boston, that is very different. Everything is different. I pay 40% more rent for less than half the living space I am used to. I take the train into downtown every day and am now part of that sea of people you see on TV hustling to my office. Everything is densely packed together. I could drive west until I get to a “farm.” But it would likely be a country-like estate that has been in this person’s family since 1700 and the farm is just so they can have horses, not grow corn.

I’m sure the type of farm that I grew up on exists in Massachusetts, but I think I would have to drive pretty far.

     Anyway, that’s not to say I don’t like it here. I do. It’s just very different than where I am from. And I just seem to notice that more and more, and I find myself talking about farm life more than I ever have, which is strange, because my contribution to life on the farm was minimal. I bean walked, mowed the lawn, painted fences, and chased in the occasional pig that got out. But, I’ve never loaded or vaccinated hogs, didn’t do “chores”, and never learned to drive a tractor. I can’t even drive stick. Wow, now seeing it here written in black and white, I was pretty worthless as a farmer’s daughter. What a deadbeat.

    Well, in my defense, my domain was mostly in the house with my mom. I helped with the housework, and that, of course, is how I learned to cook so well (thanks Mom). When I was in high school, I typically had one or two jobs.

    But still, I feel the need to talk about the farm and life at home, especially since most of the people I work with grew up in the city, and maybe have only visited a farm on a “field-trip” like excursion. Also, they have admitted to me that they "are not exactly sure where Iowa is", a fact that is giving me wrinkles. So, I have been known around my office to be a teller of “hog stories.” I don’t mean these stories to be particularly humorous, but I guess they come off that way.

     I was telling a story last night over drinks that makes my family sound exceptionally backwoods. I figured, if I ‘m going to play farm girl in a big city, I’m going to celebrate the role.

     My parents married and started a family during the farm crisis. While I don’t remember my parents as struggling or poor, I’m sure my parents worried about finances. I am the youngest of three kids who are very close in age, and my mom stayed home with us until I was about eight or nine, so for a long while, we were all supported solely by my dad’s farm operation.

     I was about four or five, and I was pulled out of my bed in the middle of the night. Us three kids were piled in our Buick and went to “the other place”, my dad’s other farm a mile down the road. I was sleepy, disoriented, and just not sure what was going on. We got to the other place and were pulled out of the car and into the barn. I knew something strange was going on for sure, because we were not allowed in the barn, for various reasons. The biggest reason was that my mother could not stand the way the smell of pigs completely permeated your clothing, hair, skin, etc. My parents bickered often if dad had to “check on something real quick” in the barn on the way to or from town in his nice clothes. My mom was a reluctant farmer’s wife, as referenced in some of my earlier posts (tornado season was an exceptionally hopeful time to my mom). To her, the farm was a way of life solely because she loves my dad. She was not one of those wives who would haul loads of grain into town, or throw on some jeans to clean out pens, but she would cook you one hell of a meal when you were done, smiling with her lipstick perfectly applied and serving you with manicured nails.

     So, imagine my confusion when my brother, sister and I are unceremoniously seated in front of a laboring sow, my dad giving my mom a pep talk. I don’t remember what was said, I don’t remember what we were sitting on. I think it might have been a bale of straw but that seems too quaint. What I do remember is the labored breathing of the sow, the heat of a lamp, the smell of blood, and my mom’s arm going up into this thing and pulling a squealing piglet out.

     And she kept repeating the process. I was initially horrified, then curious. Here the facts of life were unfolding in front of me, as I am seated on a bale of straw (or likely a smelly old blanket) in my Rainbow Brite nightshirt staring up the birth canal of a sow. You didn’t see that on Green Acres.

    My dad talking to her the whole time, and my mom trying to keep her cool as she pulled out several pigs. To an extent, I understood why this was happening: my father has enormous hands, while my mom’s hands are very petite, like mine. I remember thinking that my dad was super nice to have my mom do this instead. I’m sure the sow was grateful, but the look on my mom’s face was not one of gratitude.

     The process took a little while and I feel asleep, and was eventually carted back home and to bed. And this incident was never repeated. I asked mom about it and she simply said, “We didn’t want you kids waking up in the middle of the night and us not being there.” But that wasn’t the mystery. This was clearly a one-time deal, and I know that sows had difficult births often. When my brother was older, he sometimes had to sit with a sow that was having a hard labor.

     Fast forward 25 years to a bar in Omaha. My husband, my dad and I are having some beers with some of my friends. One of my friends, who grew up in the city, was saying he wanted to get into farming. Josh, my dad and I were explaining to him why this was a bad idea, in his situation. He didn’t have the money to invest in land and equipment. He didn’t know anything about livestock or crops. He didn’t know the struggles of just starting out as a farmer and how long it could take before you were financially established, if it ever happened at all. We explained the struggles and the delicate balance you go through to make sure your farm is profitable. To illustrate a point, I told him about my night of witnessing my mom pulling pigs, and I explained that my dad likely did not want to call the veterinarian to come out in the middle of the night, because that can be very costly. However, losing a sow and her piglets is also costly, so my mom had to step in.

     After telling my friend this story, I turned to my dad and said, “Hey, by the way, how did you ever convince her to do that?”

     My dad scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Oh, let me tell you,” he said. “It took plenty of convincing. I had to promise her all kinds of things. The whole time I was talking to her. I promised her a fur coat, I promised her a new deck with French doors...yeah I promised her a lot of things.”

     That explained my dad’s constant chatter during the process, but this also created a problem, because my mom didn't have a fur coat and our farm house never had a deck with French doors.

     “You did not,” I said.

     “Well I most certainly did, how did you think I could convince her to do it?” He asked.

     “Dad! You made certain promises to your wife while she was elbow deep in a sow and  you didn’t deliver?” I exclaimed.

      Dad smirked and chuckled to himself. “No, I guess I kind of forgot about it. That’s probably why she never did it again.” Then he laughed and turned to my friends. "You what it really was? I started thinking of all the stuff I'd to buy every time, and figured it was just cheaper to call the vet."

     We were all giggling about this when my mom arrived, who had been delayed by a little shopping. Typical Mom. I told her that I was telling my friends about the time that she pulled pigs and she immediately shouted, “OH MY GOD, that was awful, and did you know your father promised me all kinds of things? I mean, I was supposed to get some new jewelry, a fur coat, and he was going to build me a beautiful deck with French doors?” She turns to my dad.  “Yeah, Mike, whatever happened to that?”

     An amazing thing had happened, my parent’s accounts on a single story had actually matched up for the most part. This was rare. Especially since my dad can’t remember what he asked me a half hour ago, or where I work, or other things. But he remembered all these exact promises that he supposedly forgot? Typical. Apparently I had revived a 25 year old argument. As amusing as it was to watch my dad squirm, I decided to bail him out. They were my ride home, after all.

    “Well dad, you guys got the house in town now, and there’s French doors to the deck right? So you delivered…eventually,” I said.

     Dad grinned at me, then grinned at my mom. She rolled her eyes and laughed, and I saw how my dad can sometimes get away with shit. He turned back to me

     “Thanks sugar,” he said. “Would you like another beer?”

     Yep, he remembered how to keep me happy, though it would take a lot of beer to get my arm up a pig. And if that ever happened, I would ask for it up front.