Nobody reads the grocery list on the refrigerator
By Delia Marchetti, Staff writer · · 2 min read
I was in a kitchen in Dayton last month and there was a list on the refrigerator. Milk, bananas, the coffee he likes, bread. A magnet shaped like Ohio.
I asked who takes the list to the store. The woman laughed.
"Nobody takes it. I take it. It's my list."
Then why is it on the refrigerator?
"So they can add to it."
Has anyone ever added to it?
She thought about this for a while. Her husband, once, in about 1998. He wrote "beer" and she bought it and he said it was the wrong kind.
The list is not for the family. The list is a sign. It says there is a system here and someone is running it. Nobody reads the sign. They do not need to. They can see it is there.
I have one too. Mine is on a pad by the phone. My sons have never looked at it. When they come home they open the refrigerator and say there is nothing to eat, and there is, and I bought it, and it was on the list.
A friend keeps hers on her phone now. She says it is more efficient. She also says the house feels different without the paper on the door, and she cannot explain why, and she has thought about putting a blank one up.
I told her that would be strange. She agreed. She has not done it. She also has not stopped thinking about it.