The Hand-Written Grocery List Still Lives
One typewriter collector get into the fun too with the Oliver, "the bat-wing typewriter"
I typed out my grocery list, fully intending to put it in my nylon tote and use it to shop at the local grocery store.
I forgot the list but I remembered to buy cheese, canned tomatoes and dried oregano. I skipped the comet, the ketchup and tomato paste. But I forgot the cabbage, a key regular in my refrigerator vegetable drawer.
On the way out of the store, a strong wind blew plastic bags, empty paper coffee cups, receipts across the parking lot. Maybe an errant grocery list joined the group.
Frankly, I snatch the hand-written grocery list any time I can. They have a certain charm: misspelled words, scratched-off items, product names with question marks next to them. They’re either written with a pencil or a pen. I sometimes save them or release them back to the wind.
It’s oddly comforting to find these lists when nearly every shopper carries a phone and could easily pull a grocery list on their phone, keep a running alive in an app. Something drives shoppers to continue writing down a list. A spouse hands a list to his spouse on her way out the door, a daughter hands one to her mother when she rolls down the car window or a shopper writes down a list while she’s seated on a bus on her way to the grocery. Any and all of these scenarios play out today just as they did back in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, long before hand-held, portable phones ruled.
Mystery surrounds these scrawled lists. Who wrote them? Some are written in all caps to make sure the shopper doesn’t get anything wrong. Often these lists are written on paper scraps, torn from a bigger piece of paper. So many are in a nearly indecipherable version of Palmer script, almost evident that a senior has recorded this list in the writing method he or she learned back in 3rd grade.
Inside the store, these lists are swept up and dumped into the garbage can. Outside, after a dance with the wind, rain or snow, any grocery list most often gets swept up by the street cleaner or clog street drains along with plastic bags, cups, straws, leaves and branches.
Whether it’s the garbage or the drain, what an ending for a hand-written list, which really is never intended for life beyond the grocery store anyhow. Once the task of shopping is completed, the job of a grocery list is done.
But while the grocery list lives untrammeled, smooth and unstained, it has purpose. A grocery list clutched in your hand while rolling a cart down an aisle brings order to a chaotic world where a Cornish hen is $4, a glass canister of instant coffee is $3.99, a bag of La Preferida brown lentils is under $2 and a can of Redgold diced tomatoes is one buck. Only the lentils and the tomatoes are on my list, the hen is for another time. I’ off to the refrigerated section for a 1/2 dozen eggs at $3.23. The coffee practically leaps into my hands, precious gold for me.
Milan, Michigan resident Dan Peterson has used his collection of manual typewriters (including a darling Oliver 3, often referred to as the ‘bat-wing’ typewriter) out so that his family can keep a running grocery list.
Houston Selectric owner and user Adrianne O’Donnell uses her phone for grocery lists, but she loves to write notes and fill out forms on any of her three working Selectrics (her favorite is a green Selectric 1).
Author Rachel Symes (Syme’s Letter Writer: A Guide to Modern Correspondence is all about the hand-written list, not just the grocery variety. She’s fond of including lists in correspondence. Got a list of favorite spices? Dash that list off using a fountain pen and a pad of notepad paper. Favorite all-time vinyl records? List them on paper, pop in your envelope and mail it to a friend. Do the same for favorite drinks, restaurants, trees, flower and herbs.
A couple of type pals have mysteriously dropped out of my correspondence for reasons unknown. They might need a grocery list postcard from me. What do you think?
Phone manufacturers will continue to roll out new phones but the handheld grocery list is likely to continue at least a while longer, especially with older shoppers who either choose not to own and use a mobile phone.
The hand-written grocery store list will disappear briefly when the last person trained in using the Palmer Method dies, but it will re-emerge in 17 years like certain breeds of cicadas when today’s home-schooled students begin shopping. They’ll bring a liveliness and a skip to their step while they shop for a few items to add to their refrigerators, kitchen cabinets and cellars (after all, they’ll be growing and canning most of their goods).
Until then, I’ll be collecting, treasuring and interpreting those wind-blown, trampled and dirty grocery lists before they disappear.
Feel free to leave a comment below on your hand-written grocery list.
I got some index cards for this purpose. I haven't used them for typewritten ones yet. That will happen at some point.