Learning To Say No

[Listen to an audio version of this blog here.]

The other day Mike asked me if I wanted to go to the store. Absolutely not, was my answer. I don’t want to go to the store, ever. I go to the store because I need apples and arugula and chicken, not because I need to pass some time. There’s nothing more irksome than going to the store, returning home, and realizing you forgot an important item. Toothpaste or tampons or bananas, for instance. Last year, while on a trip to Mexico, one of my fellow travelers asked me what my favorite food is. Apparently, he meant something like tacos or pad Thai, but I said, “bananas.” A perfectly ripe banana can soothe any malady, real or imagined, physical or of the heart.

I said “no” to going to the store because I don’t like people. I don’t like navigating crowded aisles or elbowing my way through a crowd to get at a cannister of oatmeal. I don’t like when men try to speak to me, as if I care about the radishes that are on sale, as if I want their phone numbers or, God forbid, their appendages. I don’t like screaming children, and I don’t like that I judge what everyone is buying. Nobody needs eight boxes of Cocoa Puffs, and I find it hard to mask my disgust when I see carts full of sugar and food items created to deteriorate gut lining. I don’t like shopping carts; I find them too big and difficult to push and utterly disgusting. I don’t even like…