There is something deeply humiliating about being perceived while carrying groceries.
Not in a tragic way. Not “society has failed us” humiliating. Just specifically when you are holding three cloth bags cutting into your fingers, a carton of eggs balanced against your hip, and a coriander leaf is sticking to your sleeve for reasons beyond human comprehension.
Nobody looks elegant buying groceries. The rich outsource it. The beautiful do curated farmers market runs in linen sets for Instagram. The rest of us are sweating under tube lights debating whether we really need coriander or if the recipe can survive without it.
It usually can’t.
I think adulthood is mostly just discovering how many things require coriander.
There is also always one item you buy that feels like an accusation. Vitamins. Drain cleaner. Instant noodles. Fabric stain remover. Suddenly the cashier knows too much about you. Suddenly this is intimate.
And grocery stores have become deeply deranged places. Why does every packet now say “artisanal”? Why is the yoghurt speaking to me like a startup founder? Why does granola cost the GDP of a small nation? Somewhere along the way basic food developed branding trauma.
The eggs are cage free. The bread is guilt free. The chips are somehow “mindful.” Nobody knows what this means anymore.
Meanwhile Indian aunties continue to buy loose vegetables from a man sitting under a tarp with the confidence of ancient philosophers. No branding. No typography. Just one glance at a tomato and a verdict. That tomato has dishonoured its bloodline. Rejected immediately.
I trust them more than market research teams.
And there is something strangely tender about ordinary domestic rituals that nobody talks about properly because they sound boring on paper. Folding laundry. Making coffee half asleep. Cutting fruit for someone else. Filling steel bottles and putting them in the fridge.
Civilizations survive on deeply uncinematic acts.
Not ambition. Not productivity. Certainly not LinkedIn posts.
Just somebody remembering there’s no ginger left and buying it on the way home.
I think love lives there more often than people realize. Not in grand gestures. Not in dramatic declarations during thunderstorms. Mostly in maintenance. In noticing. In quietly replenishing what another person has run out of.
Which is perhaps why grocery shopping feels strangely emotional sometimes. You are looking at a basket full of evidence of a life being lived.
Tea.
Soap.
Rice.
Coffee.
Cat food.
Tiny proofs that despite everything, you plan to continue existing next week too.
