Happy Are the Happy

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We were at the supermarket, shopping for the weekend. At some point she said, you go stand in the cheese line while I get the rest of the groceries. When I came back, the shopping cart was half filled with boxes of cereal and bags of cookies and packets of powdered food and other desserts. I said, what’s all this for? — What do you mean, what’s all this for? I said, what’s the point of buying all this? — You have children, Robert. They like Chocolate Cruesli, they like Napolitains, they adore Kinder Bueno bars. She displayed the various packages. It’s ridiculous to gorge those kids on sugar and fat, I said. This cart is ridiculous. She said, what kind of cheese did you buy? — A Crottin de Chavignol and a Morbier. And no Gruyère? she cried out. — I forgot and I’m not going back, the line’s too long. — If there’s one kind of cheese you have to buy, you know very well it’s Gruyère, who eats Morbier in our house? Who? I do, I said. — Since when do you eat Morbier? Who wants to eat Morbier? Odile, stop it, I said. — Who likes this Morbier crap? Implicit meaning: besides your mother, my mother had recently found a nut, a metal nut, in a chunk of Morbier. I said, Odile, you’re shouting. She gave the cart a jerk and threw three Milka chocolate bars into it. I picked them up and replaced them on the shelf. She flung the bars back into the cart even faster than before. I said, I’m out of here. She answered, get out, get out, I’m out of here is all you know how to say, it’s your sole response. As soon as you run out of arguments, you say I’m out of here, you immediately resort to this grotesque threat.

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