Do You Want Anything From the Store?

When I was growing up, there was a phrase that I heard often.  It was, “Do you need anything from the store?”  My mother said it.  My grandmother said it.  In fact, all of the women in my family have said it for at least three generations.  I know this, because I say it myself.

If anyone was heading to the grocery store, be they family member, friend, or neighbor; they would inevitably ask my mother, “Do you need anything from the store?”  When my mother was going to the store, she would do the same thing.  Ask a neighbor, call her mother, ask a friend.

As a wee lass, this confused me.  Not the neighbor part.  That made sense.  The neighbor is 30 feet away, the grocery store is five miles away.  The confusing part was when it involved my grandmother (or one of my aunts for that matter).  Both lived farther from us than the grocery store.  It would actually be more convenient for them to go to the grocery store themselves, than to come and pick groceries up from our place.

But, if they needed something from the store, my mother would always drive it to their house.  That meant grocery shopping, then coming home and putting the groceries away, and THEN taking the recipient what they needed.  They could have gotten the groceries faster if they’d driven to the store themselves.

It didn’t save money, because the recipient (whether my mother was the giver or the receiver) always gave the giver the price of the item.  It didn’t save gas, because it almost always involved more driving than it would have if both people had gone to the store independently.  It didn’t save time either.   One person was waiting around at home for a loaf of bread, a quart of milk, or a stick of butter.

More often than not, the answer to the question was “No.”  “No” was probably the answer about 90% of the time.  That meant that there wasn’t some startling need for people to pick up other people’s groceries, otherwise, the percentages of “yes” would have been much higher.

So, why bother asking?  I just didn’t get it.

I get it now.

As an adult, I regularly hear myself asking my mother-in-law, “Do you need anything from the store?”  She happens to be one of my only relatives that is within a one-hour driving radius from my house.  I ask her just about every time that I am going to the store.  She does the same with me.  In the four years that we have been doing this, the answer has always been “No.”

I have never really thought much about it.  Until today.  I am going to the grocery store today, and I was on the phone with a friend of mine.  She lives a half an hour away, and works an hour away.  She’s also been having a bit of a tough time lately. 

She’s at work right now, and before I got off the phone with her, I asked her, “Do you need anything from the store?”

The answer, of course, was “no.”

But after I rang off, I started really thinking about it.  Why HAD I asked her that?  It’s not like I would have relished a one hour drive to take her a gallon of milk at work.  It’s not like I don’t have plans tonight, which would have complicated dropping her milk off to her when she gets home from work.  If the answer to that question had been in the affirmative, it would have thrown off a good portion of my day.

But I would have done it.

And I had my answer.  When my mother the members of her inner circle used to ask, “Do you need anything from the store?” they were saying something bigger.  They were saying what I said to my friend today.  They were saying what I say to my mother-in-law regularly.

They were saying, “Yes, I know that it’s out of my way.  It’ll cost me time.  It’ll cost me money.  It’ll burn my gas.  But I’ll do it.  For you.  I’ll do it for you.”

It was a simple and casual way of saying, on a regular basis, “I love you, and there is no amount of inconvenience that is greater than that love.  If you need it, I will bring it, regardless of distance and time.”

And I am proud to know that I carry on this tradition.

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Christy Parker is the author of three blogs:  Ruminations from and Unkempt Mind,  Learn to Crochet - In Minutes a Day,  and You Be the Editor.

For comments, questions, notes or suggestions; Mrs. Parker can be reached in the blog specific forums on the product information pages listed above or via email at unkemptruminations@comcast.net.