I’m so organic, I grow my own.
So, I’ve been called quite a few things in my life, but bougie has been a consistent one. When I think of myself and how I act, it doesn’t add up to me, but I must be giving something off out there. If I have to admit it’s anything, it must be because I’m slow to warm up to new people and people interpret that as snobby. But recently, I have come to think that this accusation may be partly true because of my eating habits, of all things. In talking to my husband, we were reminiscing about a phase that people went through in Atlanta about ten years ago where the running phrase was “I don’t eat at chains.” Mostly this meant that late 20s to early 30 year-olds had started feeling secure enough in the paychecks of what was probably their second job out of college that they had decided eating at Applebee’s and Friday’s was no longer acceptable. No matter that these places were just fine on their previous paychecks, but now somehow eating at an establishment that had locations also in another city/state or somewhere less cosmopolitan was basic and not hot. I remember briefly taking part in this when I would only do brunch, as if “doing brunch” wasn’t bougie enough, in places that were local and exclusive restaurants. The place could not have more than two locations and had to be worthy of being tagged in a Facebook photo, pre-filter and Instragram era. If it had a patio with outside seating, it was a place worthy of multiple visits and for dates. While at the time this seemed like completely acceptable behavior, I now know that it was just an Atlanta trend that like all of the others sweeps through the city hot and heavy, becomes accessible to and used by the masses and then fizzles out. (See the lobby of the W Midtown Atlanta or Peters Street for those of you familiar with the area.) Now while I occasionally still nosh at the trendy local eateries, Ponce City Market I’m looking at you, the way my late 30s life is set up means that I’m mostly or at least cooking a lot more these days so I am hanging out in grocery stores much, much more.
I may have mentioned that my husband, who is one of those who has called me bougie, is a few levels beneath me in the bougie arena, like six or seven, and he has no problem with eating at or shopping in the most basic, hole in the wall places that offer the cheapest and most fried food available. I like to grocery shop/eat with a semblance of respectability which means that I have latched on to the latest trend; everything organic. Now, I won’t say that this trend will fizzle out for me, because I have a child and I really do want to fill him with the best food that is out there and free of genetic altering. At the same time, I am aware that eating a non-organic banana is not going to kill me (well, I hope not because the non-organic ones taste better to me as do non-organic turkeys which I found out on Thanksgiving after the organic turkey I cooked turned out to taste like paper). So since my pantry and refrigerator are filled with organic products, this means that I must shop at stores which sell said products. This further means that not my whole, but a big chunk of my pay goes to Whole Paycheck (a.k.a. Whole Foods) and other stores that have exclusive organic brands (Hello, Fresh Market and Sprouts). And since Ludacris doesn’t pay for my groceries, this shopping habit may or may not have led to many discussions between my husband and I about grocery bills, going broke and the benefits of just eating McDonald’s every day. So, I recently started looking for deals on my organic products and started comparison shopping to save some bucks. In doing so I found out that the regular grocery store brands make their own organic products that are cheaper than the non-generic products and I feel enabled and justified in buying what amounts to be not much more in price difference than non-organic products. And sometimes, which is really great, the organic products are on sale and end up being cheaper than non-organic products. That in turn makes me feel like I have staged a major coup and should win shopper of the year. But as I was recently thinking about buying organic toilet paper, which really is recycled paper, and thought about where the recycled paper came from and why I wanted recycled paper on my lady parts, I froze and found that there is a limit to my bougieness. Much to the delight of my husband’s butt, I can’t go all in on all organic products just yet. Plus, my husband came home with a $4.99, eight piece fried chicken bucket from the local supermarket. I know the chicken isn’t organic, but trust me, it is delicious.