Carrie Link

THE LIST

We have a ghost at our house, not just any ghost, it's my dad, actually. He loves to take things that are/were in plain view and make them simply vanish. He's been doing this for years. He's taken keys that were lying right next to purses, knives that had just sliced bread, and on Sunday, he took my grocery lists.

Gone.

They were there, everyone saw them, and then they were simply not there. I'd written them on extra-large Post-Its, so I thought perhaps they'd inadvertently stuck to the bottom of something else. I searched the house, my purse, both cars, even drove back to New Seasons where I'd dropped off a bunch of plastics to recycle, thinking maybe they'd stuck to the bottom of that.

No.

And so it was that Sunday afternoon found me shopping at Target, Safeway and Trader Joe's without a list. It was at first so disorienting, as I am a slave to the list and shop in a logical pattern throughout the store according to said list. It finally dawned on me that a list is nothing more than a shopping agenda, and perhaps its time to lose the agenda.

And the only thing I got home without that I really needed? Walnuts. And turns out the recipe was fine without them.

Thanks, Dad.

* Photo from www.savola.com