About Three Bananas

Groceries

Every Sunday I buy
groceries for my mother.
She’ll call Saturday evening,
or usually leave a message
Sunday morning while
I’m in church,
and after I’ll do the shopping,
deliver them,
visit with mother
for a bit, and then
head home for lunch.
I shop at Baker’s
where they have pina colada
yogurt, mother’s favorite.
“Six yogurts,” will be on the list.
And maybe half-a-dozen soups,
she’ll say. I’ll ask her why
six of one and half a dozen
of the other. She’ll laugh.
And I know the
various kinds of soup she likes,
split-pea with ham, or chicken broccoli,
or country style vegetable beef.
She always specifies real bacon bits,
not the fake ones, like I’ll forget.
Sometimes her over-the-counter
supplements and vitamins. Or
Honey Nut Cheerios.
Two large boxes.
Or the sweet and salty
peanut and almond granola bars.
This morning she added,
“And about three bananas,”
as though there’s an
identifiable quantity that’s
about three. “I mean about a dozen, or about
twenty, or about a hundred
I can see, but about three bananas?” I thought.
Or even about three o’clock.
But not bananas.
I paused a moment and asked, “About three
bananas? Just what does the
‘about’ mean?” She laughed and said,
“Ok. Three bananas.”