The Mixed Up Brains of Lisa Weinstein

Melt Down in the Produce Section!

There are many interesting things to be found in your local supermarket produce section.  You've got your cucumbers, your squash, your broccoli, your asparagus.  Then there's your strawberries, your blueberries, your lettuce, your 14 varieties of apples, and your crying 18-year old teenage girl.

Wait.

What?

Yes, that's right.

Take a trip to your local supermarket during Labor Day weekend and you too will see this strange phenomenon.

She'll be standing right there, a granny smith apple in hand.

The crying teenage girl.

Whatever could have moved this poor dear to tears?  Perhaps the apples were bruised.  A tragedy, yes, but hardly worth such an emotional response.

Perhaps she wanted to purchase six granny smith apples, but her mother would only allow her to place five in the cart.  Yes, that certainly would have led to a tantrum, but hardly worth a tantrum of epic proportions.

Perhaps the girl wanted to purchase the apples as a snack to take to school.

Wait.

What?

Did you say school?

SCHOOL!

That's it!  That's it!

The poor dear suffered an emotional breakdown, right there in your friendly neighborhood produce section, because she truly could not accept that after two glorious months, she had to go back to school! Back for her last year of school!

Yes, that's right!  Senior year.  Something that should have made the teenage girl quite happy.

Our heroine (we'll call her Melissa) woke up that morning full of promise.  She would get organized for school! She would get prepared for school!  She would gather her books, pick out her clothes, plan her meals for school!

She would spend the entire day doing nothing but getting ready for school!

That is, until her horrible mother (Lisa) and her equally terrible father (Lisa's husband Bob) forced her at gun point merely suggested she accompany them to ShopRite so she could pick out her lunch for the first week back at school

The supermarket trip was doomed from the start.

"I don't want to go," she wailed!  "I have too many things to do!"

"I don't know what you want to eat," said Bob. "Come with us and you can pick out your own stuff. You can get anything you want."

"Fine!" she retorted.

Upon arrival at the supermarket, Melissa grabbed a cart and promptly disappeared from view.

In the meantime, Bob and Lisa calmly purused the aisles, putting various necessities in their cart. After several minutes, they decided that perhaps it would be prudent to try and find their daughter.

And find her they did. In the cereal aisle.

"There's nothing for me to eat for breakfast," she whined.

"How about oatmeal, I thought you loved oatmeal," Lisa suggested.

"Ug, I can't stand oatmeal anymore," came her response.

"How about granola bars?" asked Bob.

"I don't like any of them and they are all so bad for you," came her response.

"How about bagels," said Lisa

"I am sick of bagels!" proclaimed our heroine.

And so on it went.  Apparantly this football field sized supermarket did not carry one item that would suit Melissa's taste buds.

"How about fruit, you love fruit," suggested Lisa, refusing to give up their quest for satisfactory food.

"Noooo, I don't want fruit, it always goes bad and then we end up wasting money!" came Melissa's battle cry.

Nevertheless, Lisa marched her offspring off to the produce section while Bob took a detour to the men's room.

Taking advantage of her husband's momentary absence, Lisa decided to have a mother-daughter chat with her cherub, right there in the middle of the produce section.

"Melis, you are normally so happy, but you've been really negative ever since we got here," she said with kindness.  "What's going on sweetie."

"I don't know mom," Melissa confessed.  "I'm really worried about school.  I mean, I have to wake up early and pick out my clothes, and I have to figure out something that I can make quickly for breakfast and what if I get tons of homework, how am I going to handle it and still keep my part-time job at the senior center!?"

And then the tears began to flow.

Right there in the middle of the produce section.

And Lisa did what any mother would do when witness to her child's pain.  She threw her arms around Melissa and whispered words of comfort and held her tight.

Right there in the middle of the produce section.

By the time Bob returned from his detour, Lisa thought she saw the hint of a smile on her daughter's face.  In fact, Melissa even agreed to re-evaluate her harsh judgement of the cereal aisle, and actually found a new brand of oatmeal that made it into the cart.

She had survived the produce section melt down.

A few days later as morning dawned on senior year, Melissa consented to allow her mother to take the final "first day of school" photo. Then, without fanfare, she got into her car and drove off to school...leaving her childhood (and her mother) behind.

But Lisa didn't get sad, and Lisa didn't cry. Because Lisa knew, deep down, that whenever her baby needed to cry, and whereever her baby needed to cry, a hug from her mom would make everything ok.

Melissa's first day of senior year! The last "first day of school" photo. Sob!