Essential Groceries - Part 2

Waters Shopping List(s)
Could be called: "Things we prefer not to live without"
Or, "If I don't buy it, no one will"
Or, "Life is just better with these things on hand"

Grace's Grocery Gotta-Haves

1) Coffee - whole bean, darkish roast
I mentioned this on the ubiquitous "25 Things" list which I was (apparently) too uncool to resist writing (cf. Joel Stein's recent column on the subject): #20) I like coffee—good coffee, properly roasted, ground, and brewed. I’m pretty picky about it, and I tend to drink too much of it, especially in the winter.

2) Ziploc sandwich bags
What can I say? I find oodles of uses for them.

3) Cat litter
Will's olfactory awareness is dim indeed compared to mine.

4) Cheese sticks - mozzarella, part-skim
...the "string cheese" variety, only most days I'm too grown-up and un-fun to actually pull the cheese apart into edible strings.

5) Nuts - whole cashews, roasted almonds and/or peanuts
A filling, healthful snack (if only I could stop when I'm supposed to!)

6) Dryer sheets
Not only is Will apathetic about the nice aroma dryer sheets create; he also couldn't care less about the static caused by their absence.

7) Steel-cut oats...oh, and honey to squeeze on top
Just plain yummy—delicious and nutritious.

Will Won't Go Without...

1) Bagels - cinnamon raisin or everything...occasionally blueberry

2) Dish soap [which disappears much more quickly than it ought to, even at Will's admirable pace of dish-washing upkeep—Ben and Pearl are obsessed with any substance that lathers!]

3) Whipped topping - lite [blech!]

4) Imitation maple syrup - lite [double blech!!]

5) Bacon bits [why???]

6) Yogurt - many varieties [whatever's on sale]

7) Twizzlers - the red kind (strawberry), jumbo package [sometimes he buys that ultra-fake cherry-flavored, pull-apart, stringy kind]

8) Deli ham, ground beef, and hot dogs [perhaps to prove that, despite the dish-washing role, he is a bona fide, red-blooded American male]