I just graduated from university the other week, and I feel that this must be one of the strangest stages of life. Period. I mean the sheer quantity of oh-crap-this-means-I’m-supposed-to-be-a-real-adult-now moments that I’m experiencing currently certainly make this feel pretty surreal. One of these ‘moments’ happened in Sainsbury’s supermarket just after graduation. My parents had come to visit for the graduation ceremony, so mum, presumably out of sheer pity for the bewilderment that was on my face as a result of having been officially released from uni into the wild, came and did my week’s grocery shopping with me.
As we meandered through the aisles, I was struck by a flash-back of traipsing after her through, what had seemed to me, the wondrous and yet slightly terrifying maze of Safeway’s (man, does that age me now? Should I be worried about being aged by things when I’m only 20?!) when I was little. I used to drag mum to the huge cheese counter (I don’t think they even have those anymore….huh) and beg her to load up on Edam cheese, which in my world was something like the greatest, most delectable delicacy known to man. Not only was its gentle flavour delicious, and its texture just on the right line of firmness, but it also came in massive balls wrapped in awesome, bright red wax. What’s not to love?! Especially when you’re a three year old whose favourite colour is red.
In fact, the extent to which I loved Edam cheese is something of a legend at home. Rumour has it (do you call the stories your mother tells you about your own childhood ‘rumours’? hmmm), that my passion for Edam brought me to commit crimes most foul on a regular basis. I would sneak into the kitchen, grab the Edam from the fridge, take as humungous a bite as a very-small-person can and put back the remains. I know: shocking. It got so bad that my parents were forced to install a lock on the fridge in order to keep their little marauder out. My need for cheese was so great, however, that I bent all of my very-small-person passionate determination, cunning and ingenuity on overcoming this obstacle until I managed to break the lock. I wish I could give details of said cunning, but these events predate my actual memory and my parents never told me, so it remains a mystery.
Anyway, waaaay off track. Present day, in Sainsbury’s, flashing back to being in Safeway’s. I was shopping for sensible I’m-a-grown-up-doing-grocery-shopping things, like mushrooms (not those ones – I’m pretty sure you don’t get them in Sainsbury’s anyway). Three year old me would have recoiled in disgust, no doubt pulling a very elegant, lady-like face to show her distaste at the mere thought of choosing to ingest mushrooms (which were clearly the devil’s work). Three year old me apparently also took great pleasure in embarrassing my mother by bellowing ‘Helloooo!’ to everybody else in the shop, as we made the rounds of Safeway’s, all the way to the Edam. How the tables have turned. In Sainsbury’s, mum delighted to publicly laugh at me about how grown up I am now compared to the wee scamp I was before. And yes I may have exaggerated a little there – I don’t think my mum has ever used the phrase ‘wee scamp’ in her entire life, but I’m trying to convey a level of embarrassment here, so I think we can allow a little ‘artistic license’.
I’m not going to lie, there is a massive part of me that longs for a time when the biggest challenge of my week was to try and increase the quantity of Edam that I could persuade mum to buy, and subsequently the quantity available for stealing from the fridge. The joy of seeing the employee at the cheese counter slicing off a huge segment of Edam and then handing it to mum was immense; the knowledge that our Edam supply was replenished brought me the satisfaction of a job well done. Mission accomplished. Unfortunately, it takes a bit more than massive slabs of Edam to achieve similar job-satisfaction when you live in the world of the grown-ups.
So apparently now I’m a grown-up. I’m a graduate; I’m nearly 21; I not only eat, but voluntarily buy mushrooms (still not those ones). Now I just have to find the equivalent of yesteryear’s Edam-thrill.
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