Pizza for Dinner

So...  Today, I went to the grocery store, alone.  That doesn't happen often.  Usually, I either go on a weekday while Ben is at work and, of course, have Addie with me, or we all go as a family on the weekend - mostly so that I can have moral support.  Today I went all by myself and found that the experience was somewhat reminiscent of my pre-motherhood days.  I had forgotten how, when no one is trying to escape the shopping cart or fussing for something to eat or trying to attract attention from every other person in the store, I can get distracted.  Rather than rushing to mark everything off of my list, I could saunter through the aisles at my pleasure (foolishly, I know), just waiting for something to tempt me.

This time, it was a pizza.  I wouldn't have given it a second thought, but it was fifty percent off!  Who can ignore that?  Well, actually there are probably a LOT of sensible people who can.  Today, I wasn't one of them.  Naturally, I had to stand there beside my cart, looking at the pizza box from every possible angle, analyzing every imaginable pro and con to making it my dinner.  When that wasn't enough to justify a little splurge, I had to text my husband to get his opinion.  Let it be on his conscience, not mine.  I know that sounds selfish, but he doesn't seek out and entertain guilt as easily as I do.

His response was simple and exactly what I wanted to hear - "I do like pizza..."   By the time I got the text, I had moved on to the produce department, so I told myself that I would finish getting the things on my list and then, if the pizza was still there when I got back to the dairy aisle, I would do it.  Sure enough, there it was, waiting for me in its discounted splendor.

As I picked it up, the battle began.  From one side of my mind came the guilt - you just got back from vacation with your family.  You just told yourself you were going to get back to healthy eating.  You haven't had a bad enough day to deserve this.  You had RAMEN for lunch!  And from the other end, I rationalized - It's not like we do this a lot.  We didn't have pizza the whole time we were on vacation (almost true, as I think about it now...).  It's half off.  So went my pathetic inner storm as I plopped the box into the cart and made for the check-out.

I tried not to think about the little delicacy as the cashier scanned my items, though someone was screaming at me from inside my head that I was making a huge mistake, that it couldn't possibly be right to buy a pizza just out of the blue.  No, never.  I would have to think it over for at least half an hour first.  Nevertheless, I kept my cool.  I paid for my groceries, took my cart and steered back out of the store and into the parking lot.

Only after loading everything into the car, returning the cart, and dropping with a sigh into the driver's seat, did I come upon the ridiculously obvious thought I had been waiting for.  Caitlin, it said, $4.50 is not going to kill anyone.  And I thought, oh.  OK, then.

And I got home, and we baked the pizza.  And do you know what?  It tasted very good.  Not at all like guilt.