Tonight I gained insight into the mind of one parent who was shopping at the commissary the same day I did.

I went to the freezer and pulled out one of my “Amy’s” brand frozen dinners (Indian food, yay!) and flipped the box to the back to check cooking times… where I discovered a tiny, yellow sticky note with a shopping list on the back. The list comprises five items and is written in the standard military font* (mostly capitals and a strange looking letter “E”). How do I know this person is a parent? The list reads as follows:

• POTATOES
  UNCRUSTABLES
  BREAD
  GOOBER GRAPE
  BEER

Now I can’t imagine an adult eating Uncrustables (which are weird and have too many strange ingredients for a real peanut butter and jelly sandwich) or “Goober Grape” which is peanut butter and jelly in the same jar and has to be refrigerated (cold peanut butter is one of the things on my personal EW GROSS list), but I can certainly imagine a parent who has a child only eating two types of PBJ and potatoes maybe wanting a beer. I feel like a got a little glimpse into this stranger’s mind.

I’m going to go finish my dinner now, as soon as I stop laughing…

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*I’m not kidding when I say the military has its own font. They all learn to write the same way in boot camp (check out that link if you want to see), and most of them keep some version of it as their handwriting afterward. Even military documents (orders, policies, even some emails) are written in all capital letters. This supposedly makes it easier to read, which I guess with handwriting makes sense, but when the emails (or orders) are in all caps, I kind of feel like someone’s yelling at me…