Click. I push down on my blinker to indicate a left turn into my local Fresh Grocer. Just a quick run into the store, I tell myself. We don’t need anything but lettuce and peaches. And I can check my lottery tickets. 

I bag up seven white peaches. Lay them in my cart to avoid bruising. Push my cart ten feet to the lettuce fridge. Pull out one box of red leaf and one box of crispy green lettuce. Drop them in the cart. Mission accomplished, maybe.

There’s a box of that Pellegrino peach-flavored water I love. Only ten calories a can. I head in its direction. Stop. Do we really need it? No, but. Maybe people will come over. I grab a box and walk over to the Check Your Lottery Tickets machine. Sorry, not a winner. Twice. I rip up my losers and drop them in the garbage. I turn.

The Italian goodies wall is right in front of me. Taralli. All kinds of biscuits and pastas and oils and sauces — AND San Carlo la Vita è Buona potato chips in nine flavors. I love potato chips. I love Italy. I wrestle with myself — you shouldn’t eat these; I’ll eat them instead of bread with my chicken salad at lunch; I deserve a treat, etc., etc., and then… I remind myself of that well-known fact that food consumed in a foreign country has no calories. As the Italian potato chips are in a foreign country, they must be calorie-free. The package says otherwise — one portion equals 140 calories. Oh well, I tell myself. It’s been a rough year. I pick up a bag and stand it in my cart, and when I checkout, I make sure to put those chips on the top of my shopping bag. I don’t want to break a single one of them.