Lisa walked up and down the various aisles, checking off items on the crumpled shopping list that she had hurriedly stuffed in her jeans pocket before she left for class. Normally, she would be annoyed with herself for being so unorganized and—oh, the horror—late for class, but she was up dreadfully late last night experimenting with a new story idea. A load of good that did her; she ended up giving up on all of her experiments, went to bed at three in the morning, and woke up to her roommate screaming at her at seven for a long day of classes.
          “And don’t forget the groceries!” was the last sentence her roommate threw at her before she flew out of the door, list safe in her back pocket.
          “Wheat bread, check. Apple jelly, check. Sun chips—the yucky kind—check. Sirloin steaks, what? Jeez, is she throwing a party or something?”
          It was fortunate that Lisa enjoyed the process of grocery shopping. She felt at ease and in control as she handled the cart expertly through throngs of rushing people. Grocery shopping was an opportunity to reflect on one’s plans for the next week. It’s also a good time to be alone and just surround oneself with the good things in life: food. One could never go wrong with food. Everything else can. Relationships, homework, work, laundry—they could all go wrong at any moment. You could say the wrong thing to a significant other and have them boiling mad at you for a month; you could spend a good week and a half on a paper that your professor generously marks on with blood-red ink; you could spend time doing your best at work only to have your boss be displeased by your performance; or you could fold a pair of underwear the wrong way and your roommate will bite your head off for it. But as long as one follows the list, one can spend the rest of the day strolling through the aisles, picking up whatever suited your fancy and not have to worry about a thing.
          Lisa passed by the florist section and slowed to a stop. She remembered getting that first bouquet of roses—red, mind you—because, oh, they were her favorite flowers. They smelt of fresh rain and wine, and bounded her to that person who knew her so well. The vision of those roses, half-dead, hanging upside down in her pale-pink bedroom brought back the swelling emotions in her chest, and on a whim, grabbed the scrawniest bouquet of the bunch and went to check out.
          Once she got home, she set the roses in water, took a deep breath of that dreamy scent, and smiled.