I would have to dissassemble and chose - food or drink. Hard to pass up on a really good Bloody Mary though (for $5!), so maybe drink + bacon.

Any idea what's wrapped around the little bag of popcorn?

A little background: I'm a 55 year old, married female, who lives in an upper middle-class development, threaded through with a public golf course (we don't play). We don't have children and I don't work, but my husband makes a very good living. However, we both grew up poor, so some habits are hard to break, like shopping sales and clipping coupons, stocking and preserving food, having a large chest freezer in the garage, and watching grocery prices. Within a 1-5 mile drive of this house are ten chain grocery stores - Super Wal-Mart (2), Super Target, Sprouts (2), Safeway, King Soopers (2), Albertsons, and Whole Foods. Every Wednesday, the grocery store weekly sales flyers are delivered, wrapped in a thin crust of local news, to our driveway.

There is a lot of hedging and fudging going on in that article, but it *is* USA Today, so not much surprise there. Let's try 'school-aged' children - are they talking about two children, ages 6 and 8? Or two teenagers, ages 14 and 16? Male or female teens? Athletic or sedentary? For some of the basics listed in the article like bread, milk, cereal, peanut butter, and eggs, the amount needed to feed two active teens doubles. We did not raise kids, but I've seen the whites of the eyes of parents, who have told us of the horror of trying to keep the cavernous guts of their teens from caving in.

How many families do you know eat all their meals at home? Their *home-cooked* meals? Today is Friday. If we haven't secured two seats in a sit-down type restaurant, without making a reservation, by 4:30 p.m., five at the outside, we'll be standing in line to get a table, and that's in most every restaurant in town. I'm not kidding. Ditto for Saturday and Sunday, but the lines will start earlier. Moms here work and their attitude is that they are NOT going to cook for their families seven days a week. There has to be some perks to bringing home a paycheck. As I sit gazing from my comfy seat at the bar and watch the lines grow, I have not doubt whatsoever, what member of the family suggested the restaurant and marshalled together her brood. This is usually when we get up and leave to free up the seats (we're not heartless and we like the manager).

I pulled out my calculator and figured on a rough estimate of my grocery sales slips charged on an airline credit card, I spend just under $4 per meal for the two of us. It does not include what I'm pulling out of the cabinets, pantry or freezer every week. There are alot of incidental costs in cooking. I'm reminded of this every time we rent a condo for vacationing, and the management's policy is remove every single edible item from the premises after each visitor, including the salt and pepper shakers. Housekeeping must have a lifetime supply of 'incidentals'. Which means I have to bring or buy everything. Everything, and those items too are purchased at the grocery store.

Really, I could go on and on regarding the above grocery budgets, but you get the picture. Thanks for your patience.

Great find, I loved seeing an elephant as a gymnast.

I must have missed Edward's smile.

...because those coconuts never just fall to the ground on their own? How begat new coconut trees?