Five Things in My Cart. Twenty Dollars Gone.

Milk, cereal, Pepsi, hash browns, and a bottle of raspberry lemonade. That’s what I stopped at Giant Eagle to pick up. Nothing fancy. Nothing that required a second mortgage.

Five items. $20.56

I stood there looking at the receipt, then back at my cart, wondering if I’d forgotten a bag of groceries somewhere.

It’s not that I expected to feed a family for a week on twenty bucks. I understand that milk costs money. So does cereal. But the Cocoa Pebbles were $5.99. Six dollars for a box of cereal. At that price, Fred Flintstone ought to come to my house, pour the bowl, and wash the spoon when I'm done.

And after spending $20.56, I expected the cart to look a little less like I’d only just started shopping.

Look at what’s in it. The milk and cereal can handle breakfast, although apparently breakfast is becoming a luxury experience. The hash browns can also handle breakfast, if breakfast needs a second shift. Pepsi is a drink. And the raspberry lemonade? Apparently, I needed something refreshing to wash down the disappointment.

That’s what gets me. These aren’t five strange specialty items. They’re regular grocery-store stuff, the kind you pick up because you noticed you needed them. Yet together they cost enough that I checked the receipt against the cart, as if I might have left the actual groceries behind.

The receipt was complete. The shopping wasn’t.

There’s a particular annoyance in paying for a grocery trip and realizing you’ve mostly purchased the beginning of another grocery list. I've got breakfast covered and enough beverages to stay hydrated while I figure out what I'm actually going to eat. Somehow, the bag is light and the total isn’t.

I’m not asking for a parade because I bought cereal. Although, for $5.99, maybe a small ceremony wouldn't be unreasonable. I’d just like twenty dollars and change to put up a little more resistance against five completely ordinary things.

Apparently, twenty dollars doesn’t buy groceries anymore. It just buys you a reason to come back tomorrow.