the heart wants what the heart wants

Throughout my childhood, my family lived on a very tight budget. My father was a hippie minister and my mother did not work. I never thought about being poor; it never bothered me. It was always an adventure. Because of our limited finances, we did our grocery shopping at a “bag your own groceries” warehouse. Cardboard shipping boxes were cut open and placed on the shelves. It was dark, and a little creepy. Once, my brother and I saw a rat in the dog food aisle. We begged my mother to let us try to catch it and take it home as a pet, but she refused.

Every Friday, my father insisted on having a “family night”. We rotated activities. Sometimes, we would get dressed in our pajamas and drive to the Little Essex convenience store for hot French fries. Occasionally, we played Putt-Putt golf, or went to Mugs and Movies - the second-run theater - where a movie was fifty cents and we could bring in our own brown paper bags of popcorn. My favorite family night was grocery store night. My father would give us each five dollars and take us to the fancy grocery store. To Publix -where shopping is a pleasure. We were allowed to buy anything we wanted with our five dollars, and it was our special food than nobody else could eat. I always bought a two liter bottle of Sunkist orange soda (because I wanted those Sunkist good vibrations), and a box of fortune cookies. I shivered with excitement at the thought of an entire box of fortune cookies - of all those good fortunes - just for me.

And then, I always wanted a box of Cascade dish detergent.

I would take my selections to my parents and put them in the cart. My mother would look at the box of Cascade. She would remind me that we did not have a dishwasher and that Cascade was soap that only worked in a dishwasher. I always fought her. I wanted the Cascade. Couldn't we find a way to make it work? Couldn't we sprinkle it somehow? It had unique sheeting action. It sounded lovely. I really, really, really, wanted the Cascade.

She always made me put it back.

I would look at the green box on the shelf. The lovely, graceful hand holding a sparkling glass. I knew that this was the one thing missing in my life - this hand on the green box. Screw our lack of a dishwasher. I wanted a box of Cascade. I did not want to buy any more food with my five dollars; I wanted a beautiful, green box of Cascade.

When I moved out on my own, I found that my apartment had a dishwasher. The first thing that I did was take a trip to Publix to buy a box of Cascade. It had the same beautiful hand on the front, the same manicured nails wrapped around the stem of the same sparkling glass. I took the Cascade home along with a box of fortune cookies, and I ate every single cookie that first night. I lined up the fortunes on my kitchen table while the dishwasher hummed and swooshed and the Cascade used its mysterious sheeting action to miraculously clean all of my dirty pots and cups and knives.

Comments

[Amy]

I loved Mugs and Movies with their individual swivel chairs and little tables....I would choose it over an expensive theater -- I would wait for the movies to get there rather than see it immediately....and we weren't loaded either. I remember my dad buying huge cans with a very generic black and white wrapper listing the ingredients next to the huge words "Chocolate Pudding." It is always fun to see references to my childhood in someone's writing -- our stories overlap at the cheap theater and the warehouse grocery and I'm sure many other places around town.

[Molly]

Now I don't have to feel weird for trying to think of some way to use those beautiful Cascade boxes in my home decor. I have actually saved old toothpaste boxes--they're pretty too.

[amy]

molly - i would think that there are many things to do with pretty boxes.