Our Brief Outing

Sam and I made a trip to the grocery store tonight - unusual for us only because it’s a weeknight and not a part of our Saturday errands. This was inspired by Sam’s reading the newspaper at school.

Over the last year and a half or so, Sam has taken to reading the weather and maybe an article or two in the local paper during his homeroom class period. As a result, he is often more educated than I am about some of the events going on around town - which is not necessarily saying a lot, but in this case, it is.

On his afternoon “I’m Home From School” phone call, he was excited to tell me that the day’s paper had a weekly sale flyer for a local grocery store that he likes to visit. He told me about a few of the sale items that might be of interest to us, so I told him we could check it out after I got home.

This particular grocery store carries a lot of the usual grocery store type of stuff, but they also carry a lot of local items along with some unique fruits and vegetables. Sam seems to particularly enjoy looking at the fruits and vegetables and commenting on them. The weirder, the better. He has no interest in trying any of them, just checking them out. It’s a little bit like being at a poor man’s museum or some strange art gallery - except it’s fun.

When I got home, I helped Sam with his dinner, and we went through the flyer and decided to take a trip over to the store - as if there would be any other outcome.

We got to the store and checked out their usual assortment of the unusual, and I came across a bin filled with some of the largest papayas I’ve ever seen. I called Sam over and asked him if knew what they were. He didn’t, so I told him, and he smiled and I said, “You know, “I don’t know what they’re doing with the papayas!””

And he smiled even more and he said, “No, you mean, “I don’t know what’s going on with the papayas!”

He was right, of course.

We wandered the store, laughing about it, before finally wrapping up our shopping visit by getting a few essentials, things like stuffing and some of those wheat rolls Sam likes - but we didn't get any fruit - papayas or otherwise.

Back at home, we put away the groceries and decided to watch an episode of "Seinfeld" and play a few games of “Connect Four”.

Sam beat me four games to two.