We all have certain internal monologues, which are sometimes broadcast in other venues, but others, possible more rare since so much is shared, with varying degrees of self-censorship and editing, are meant for our consumption alone. German public radio had an excellent vignette about one such surreptitious collector of those private streams-of-thought (leidiglich, nicht entweder auf Deutsch), intended for the author’s eyes only, and compiled her findings and reflections into a book on the ephemeral phenomena of the shopping-list.
Mostly found cast off at the islands in the parking lot where one returns shopping-carts, the character of these anonymous reminders, which only need be intelligible to the user for the nonce, became quite an interesting subject and obsession. Most lists, interestingly, are written in long-hand and at least half-way understood by strangers, and others still are coded strangely as if necessity and vice were a matter too delicate to commit to paper, lest someone should see that this household is a buyer of toilet tissue, and many also betray an escaping word that is not readily recalled—
Fuฮฒrubbelding, an exfoliator for one’s calloused feet, I guess, but perhaps that is the correct German term. Sometimes when I go to the super-market without a good plan in my head and get a little overwhelmed by the selection, I’ll spy other shoppers and think, “Oh, that’s exactly just what I need: a shopping list,” and get a little jealous. It only need be a cue good enough for daily chores but such notes provide an unexpected insight, when not much else is close-hold. H and I sometimes write grocery lists for each other and I’m not sure that the detail or idiosyncrasies are not much different than what we’d make for ourselves.
