Party Planning

This past weekend we had a party for my husband's 30th birthday. We asked his sister if we could hold the party at her house and told her we would do all the planning. She graciously said that it would be alright since her house is the bomb for parties. I was tasked with coming up with the menu to feed 25 adults and countless ankle bitters. Seeing that I often do not bother with details until the last minute I found myself sitting in front of the TV on Thursday night while my husband was boozing it up since Thursday was his actual birthday, wondering how I was going to pull it all off. We were staying with his parents who live a good 2 1/2 hours from us and his sister lives another 15 minutes from them.

I quickly ran through a plan in my mind and decided I would leave my daughter at grandma and grandpa's house and would head to the store around noon for the grocery buying spree. I would then descend on my sister-in-law's house and proceed to take over her kitchen. Mind you I have never fed more than eight people, so 25 was a whole new world!

Come Saturday I had made a full page list and dawned the doors of the grocery store to begin executing my oh so simple plan. I knew it was going to be a full cart so from the very beginning I started to stack and organize the cart. Before I knew it my cart was full and was beginning to be very hard to push. Due to the ever increasing weight the wheels of the cart ceased to steer but would rather slide around corners. I found myself apologizing to the same people over and over again as my cart seemed a bit out of control bearing a weight I no doubt could ever hope to lift. I slid my way into the liquor section of the grocery store and was a little miffed that in order to buy my three cases of beer on my list I would have to maneuver my cart into a walk in cooler. Normally this would not be a problem but the door to the walk in cooler had a little lip on it. I surveyed my cart and decided it was not a smart idea to leave it stranded in the aisle. Not only did it hold over 1 1/2 hours of grocery shopping but my purse was also buried under a combination of 60+ hot dog/hamburger buns. I slid the cart around and aligned myself to back into the beer cooler. I led with my butt and did a few bumps to the door to get it to stay open while I heaved my cart with all my might over the lip. I made it into the cooler only to discover that it was not meant for carts. There were stacks of beer everywhere and no pathway for 200 lb. carts. So I parked it right inside the door and ventured the ten steps away to survey the various brands of beer at my finger tips. After a few minutes I decided to forgo hemming and hawing about which brand to buy since it was getting down right cold in there and settled on two different varieties. I neatly placed them in the other half of the underside of my cart that I have been saving specifically for the beer. There was JUST enough room and I breathed a little sigh of relief that I would not have to heave a case of beer on my shoulder while I tried to single handily steer my ridiculously full cart to the front of the store.

Since I had not anticipated that there would not be any aisles for carts I was not able to turn my cart around to again butt bump the door open and pull my cart through. Instead I was forced to take the door head on with the front of my cart leading and at the same time trying to combat the metal lip of the door. My first attempt I must admit was pretty week. I hit the door with the front of my cart and was easily rejected by the lip. Seeing that this was going to be a little more difficult I got a little more of a start and again rammed my cart into the swinging door. The door lip was not going down without a fight and once again my 200+ lb. cart was tossed back into the cooler, which at this point was feeling colder than hell. I had goosebumps on my goosebumps and I am sure my lips were starting to turn purple as they often do when I get cold. With the impending frost bite in the forefront of my mind I decided to really bulldoze the door this third time. I backed up as far as I could in the cooler and took a running start. My cart crashed into the door at full force and the front part of my cart hurdled the lip. Due to the fact that I had come at the door with such velocity the door swung open, hit the cooler behind it on the opposite side of the door and crashed back into my cart. It was quite a commotion. What I didn't notice at first was the guy perusing the scotch that I very nearly ended his life with the backlash of the door swing. With half my cart in the cooler and half my cart out this man peaked around the backside of the door and gave me a bewildered stare. He observed my cart, looked back up at me and my purple lips and asked me if I could use some help. I gratefully accepted and he helped me heave the back half of my cart over the pesky lip of the door. I apologized to him and told him that I had to take a running start to get out of that cooler or I was going to freeze to death. He gave me another odd look and said, "Why did you take your cart in there to begin with?" I answered frankly, "I can't have someone steal all these groceries," with a wave of my hand over the cart. Now he was looking at me like a I was officially insane, and I think in retrospect this was where the culture gap entered into the picture. I am used to locking my house up like a drum at night, locking my car if I step two feet away from it, and am living on constant alert that someone might try to grab my purse or take something that is rightfully mine. This was a place where people leave their keys in the car, don't even have door locks on their front doors, and don't bat an eyelid when they walk away from their cart with their purse hanging out in the front child seat. He walked away in utter bewilderment as I slid my cart around the corner to check out the various kinds of whiskey.

My final purchase was wooden squires so I could assemble my fruit squires. I looked all throughout the store and carefully examined the area by the charcoal thinking that would be their logical place. With no luck I pushed my cart back towards the butcher counter with my body now angled at a 45 degrees towards the ground for maximum leg strength in an effort to propel my load forward. When I got to the butcher counter I intercepted an employee getting ready to put some meat on display. I inquired to the location of the squires and she went back and asked her fellow butcher friends where in fact they were located. They told her they were by the charcoal section and away she went. As I was trying to keep up I told her that I checked there to no avail. Apparently she wanted to confirm that I was looking in the right place since she barrelled on with not much regard to my comment. I should mention that the charcoal section and the meat counter are almost as far away as they can be from each other. Obviously at this point in my shopping trip getting around was not exactly a walk in the park. I met the lady back at the marked spot and saw her blankly staring at the row of shelves I have already assessed. After a few minutes turned to me and says, "Yeah, they aren't here." And again I was faced with one of those situations where there is what you want to say, 'yeah you dumb bitch I just told you that 10 aisles over, BEFORE the bead of sweat dripped down my face!' and there is what you actually say 'yeah, I didn't see them there either.' I must have not hidden the look of exhaustion from heaving this cart around because she told me to stay put and she would try to run up and down the aisles to see if they were on an end cap.

Instead of waiting in the corner of the store for her to get back I located myself more centrally to await her return. While I stood and waited I realized I forgot a flat of bottled water. I quickly took the chance and abandon my cart and ran one aisle over to seize the flat. Seeing I had used up every square inch of space in my cart I decided to precariously balance it on the far corner of the cart. Upon the lady's return she looked at my cart in utter amazement. I think the 24-pack of water balanced on the cart corner really amazed her and I can only imagine how many kids she thought I had for the amount of food I was buying. Turned out she found no wood sticks and proposed that I buy some off the butcher. I agreed and almost sewed my head to the carpet when I realized this would mean going back across the store and into the back corner to make this transaction.

With my butcher packed set of wooden sticks setting on top of my cart I once again took a stance of someone walking up Mt. Everest and forged to pay for my party on wheels. On the way up the front of the store I almost took out a mother and young child who happened to be in my blind spot as I rounded a corner. Luckily for them the mother was quick on her feet and pulled the child to safety. I did my now customary apology and kept the freight train rolling. I pulled into the cashier that directly lined up with the aisle I was coming down for fear I could not turn this baby to navigate sharp turns into other lanes. After 10+ minutes of scanning and bagging I had my receipt in hand and started to make my way to the door to do curb side pickup of my now two carts of food. (The baggers couldn't fit it all into one.) Only steps away from the door I realized I had forgotten a major purchase that makes a party a party... ICE! I ran back towards my cashier, who was now checking someone else out, and was intercepted by the manager. Being fully aware of my huge order he escorted me over to customer service and I paid for my three 25-lb. bags of ice.

By the time the groceries were loaded into the car I had spent over two hours at the store. So much for getting in and out and on my way to preparation! I was already spent, literally and figuratively, and I still had to prepare food for the 25 anticipated guests and their kids.