It's All in the Cards

One of my greatest fears has been realized: My grocery store club card is recording my every purchase. I have a feeling that somewhere in a corporate office a team of marketing analysts is staring at a screen full of my personal consumer information thinking "My, this woman sure can't cook."

Normally I'm not a paranoid person, but I'm not sure I like complete strangers knowing that the only fruit my family eats is the kind rolled up in a box and that I actually buy Spam. After all, what are they doing with this information? What if I'm sorted into a special bad mommy group that they're studying for future side effects from processed mystery food? What if my dentist finds out that each week I buy the sugarcoated cereal with the best prize in the box? Or what if, for goshsakes, word gets out that in a moment of weakness, I bought a magazine with a cover story about a surrogate mother who gave birth to alien triplets?

I imagine myself standing in the check-out line one day and, just as soon as the cashier swipes my club card through the register, an alarm goes off and several police officers resembling Martha Stewart surround my cart, seize all of my boxes of frozen waffles and cheese whiz, and declare me an unfit mother.

I was so upset I had to call my friend, Julie, to see what she thought about this unfair invasion of consumer privacy.

"I don't see what you're getting all worked up about," she said. "It's just a discount card."

"That's easy for you to say."

What could I expect from a woman who bakes bread and makes her own meatballs?

So I did the only thing I could think of: buy food that would throw the consumer analysts off my trail.

The next time I went shopping I filled my basket with tofu and several other unidentifiable items in the organic produce section. I tossed in a giant root that looked like something out of a B-grade horror movie and a suspicious leafy green vegetable that I wasn't completely sure was legal.

When I finished, I proudly handed the cashier my card. "Starting today," I said loudly, "no one can accuse me of serving frozen pizza and jujubes for dinner, no-siree!"

In fact, no one could accuse me of serving anything for dinner at all -- since I had no idea how to prepare any of the food I bought. As I struggled to create some kind of edable meal, I decided it would be much easier to get a new card under an assumed name or make Julie swipe my card through the register every time she goes shopping.

But what kind of an example would that set for my children?

Then I had an idea.

"What are you doing with the scissors?" My husband asked.

"I'm getting our privacy back," I said as I cut through the card. "Then I'm going to the store to buy some TV dinners and processed cheese food - at full price!" I tossed the pieces over my shoulder and let out a crazy little laugh.

"Say, have you been in the cooking sherry again?"

I shook my head and wistfully recalled the good old days before electronic club cards, when I had to cut coupons out of the newspaper by hand and could buy a dozen boxes of macaroni and cheese without it going on my permanent record.

I was so happy and innocent then.