Life of Hardin Vol. IV, No. 4

No Place Like Home


Today I am traveling home to the States for three weeks. It is the first trip back in seven months, so I thought it would be appropriate to fill this space with some thoughts of reflection.

There is a grocery store here that, once every so often, when the moon is full and the tides are up, gets in a shipment of products from the States. Now that may not be a special thing to you, since those boats arrive weekly there to all points within a thousand or so miles of the Mississippi. Here they do not. And while grocery stores here are very nice, their products are just . . . not . . . quite . . . there. You can get beans, but you have to do the initial frying as well as the refrying. You can get milk that obviously came from a cow, but one that's eaten shrub grass rather than Kentucky blue. You can get the ingredients to make a cake, but they always come out a little dehydrated (maybe the heat here) and pale in comparison to a good Betty Crocker extra moist mix. You can get several different flavors of mayonaise, but none have that tangy zip of Miracle Whip. And while there is cheese, no matter what you do, you simply cannot get anything remotely close to a good bowl of Rotel dip.

That said, when this particular grocery gets a shipment in, there is a raid. Armed guards line the doors. Anyone living here who is originally from that land from sea to shining sea fights tooth and nail for whatever lines the shelves.

A shipment came in about a week ago. I couldn't think of anything for which I had been in a constant state of want. (I keep a supply of Velveeta, so I don't go long without cheese dip.) So I went, but I thought, "What's the big deal? I get pretty close to what I'm used to anyway." But when I stepped into the American Foods Isle, I knew I had discovered El Dorado.

Two full rows of items not seen in seven months. Cereals! Real Cocoa Crispis that said "Snap! Crackle! Pop!" on the box instead of "Makes a Noise When You Pour Milk on Them". Mustard and more mustard without extra spices! Pork and Beans! Canned Yams! A-1 sauce! Macaroni and Cheese! Applesauce! Hershey's Brownie Mix! Thick, brown molasses! IBC Root Beer! Orange and Grape Crush! CHARMIN toilet paper! Goober Grape! I don't even like peanut butter very much, and I broke down when I saw it. I turned my head so that people wouldn't see me weep.

So I wandered up and down the aisle, and up and down again, and up and down again. Every time I saw something I shouted its name--"Del Monte Pickle Relish!"--and raked three into the cart. Then I began to notice the things I had grabbed and the price tag. I started to put things back. I didn't need pickle relish. I didn't need A-1. I didn't need Dial soap. I didn't need Bisquick. I didn't need Charmin, despite its squeezably softness. I realized that over half of the things I snatched I never even buy in the States. There had been very few occasions when I had missed some particular item and had dwelt on the thought for more than a tenth of a second. Their absence hadn't contributed two cents to making me miserable.

So there are two things I learned from this, yea, three things I discovered. One is that there is no place like home. Two is that there is that the key to being happy is not to "not want" anything else. It is to realize that not one of the things we have is owed to us. Every thing is a gift, whether it be what we are used to, or just almost there. And three, somebody better have me a moist chocolate cake ready when I get home.