One Little Elephant

I stalk men at the grocery store. At first this disturbed my husband, but now he encourages me.

My prey can be any of several species: college-age frat-boy, thirty-something tail-gater, middle-aged party-host. He looks different each time, but I recognize him on sight. He enters the store alone and stops short, looking momentarily dazed, like a deer in headlights. Then he spots the aisle signs and beelines for the beer and deli sections. He fills his cart with enough brew to drown a rugby team and heaps platters of finger foods on top.

I creep along behind him with my loaded cart. Watching. Waiting.

Finally he rolls into a checkout lane and I dart in behind him. Should a checker from an empty lane try to wave me over with a friendly "I can help you over here, ma'am," I frown at her and shake my head. I bide my time pretending to leaf through a recipe mag.

As his last case of beer is scanned, I lean in and smile my best harmless-housewife smile. "Do you collect the stamps?" I ask.

He looks confused.

"For the dishes?" I say.

The grocery checker is watching intently, her hand poised above the section of her cash drawer where the stamps reside.

"Dishes?" His head comes up as if sensing danger. He looks about the store. The grocery checker and I both stare at him with polite expectation. "Uh, no, I guess not," he says.

"Well, then," I say sweetly, "may I have yours?"

"Umm, sure, I guess so."

The grocery clerk hands him a stack of stamps worth a small fortune. He passes them, gallantly, to me. I thank him and he wheels off with his game-day beer and snacks.

The grocery clerk grins and lifts an eyebrow at me. "That's how it's done," she says, and starts ringing up my cart.

Just as hunters of old thanked the bison for the gift of its meat, I thank those generous beer-run guys. Their stamps, which might otherwise have landed in the trash with the empty beer cans, allow my family to dine on expensive famous-brand china. They've also helped me gift happy brides with hundreds of dollars worth of wedding registry cookware. All without it costing me a single dime.

So what does stalking beer-run guys at the grocery store have to do with writing? I've shared in previous posts about the financial cost of being a writer. Anything I can do to save money in my daily life softens the financial impact on my family of getting started as a writer.

What are some of your favorite money-savers?



Something that's helping me write today: A decision I made this weekend while gazing out at the vast expanse of ocean off Pelican Island. Moments in time can seem like drops of water in a vast ocean: endless, inexhaustible. Perhaps in eternity they are. But my lifetime here on earth is finite. I need to use my time in a wise and balanced way if I wish to achieve all my goals, writing and otherwise. To that end, instead of posting to this blog twice a week, I'll be rebalancing my writing time by posting only once a week on Sunday evening. We'll see how that goes.