Shopping lists

There is a conversation my dad and I have just outside Waitrose at least once a week (or we did, before I moved to Japan. That made it slightly less regular). It goes, almost without variation, like this:

Dad: "Did you bring the list?"

Me: "What list?"

Dad: "The shopping list."

Me: "I didn't know we had a shopping list."

Dad: "We always have a shopping list. It was on the breakfast bar."

Me: "Well, then, I obviously didn't bring the list, no."

Dad: "Then how the hell are we supposed to go shopping?"

Me: "Can't we just shop? We don't need a list."

Dad: "Of course we need a bloody list. How else do we know what to buy?"

Me: "By buying things we need when we see them?"

Dad: "And how do we know we need them?"

Me: "Because we get the same things every week?"

Dad: "Only because you keep forgetting the bloody list."

And then we go shopping, and we buy the same things, and we forget the same things, and we come out and - on top of the same old pasta sauce and chicken and broccoli and Quorn sausages - there is always, inevitably, something utterly incongruous: 500 teabags or five giant packs of ice or 3 family sized jars of a brand of coffee that nobody in the household actually likes. And then, when we're back at home, we'll unpack all the bags and stand in the kitchen and frown at each other and have a conversation that goes something like this:

Me: "Why the hell have we got a box of 500 teabags, dad?"

Dad: "It was on special."

Me: "But we don't drink tea."

Dad: "But it was on special."

Me: "But we still don't drink tea."

Dad: "Well other people do, Holly. Other people can drink it."

Me: "Who?"

Dad: "I don't know. Builders."

Me (looking round): "What builders? And 500 cups of it?"

Long silence.

Dad: "This is why we needed the bloody list, Holly."

Without a list, my dad argues, you're stuck in no man's land: forced into boring routine and habit to compensate for not knowing what you're doing, and also a victim of sporadic and irrational whims that you - or the builders who actually prefer coffee - end up seriously regretting. You need a list to keep you focused, and to keep you inspired, and to make sure that every 'special' offer doesn't turn your head. To make the trip bearable and smooth. And - perhaps most importantly - so that you don't end up with coffee decanted into little tiny jars tucked into every single drawer or cupboard in the house, which makes the whole place smell like a bad cafe and really, really upsets my mum.

I need a list. My life has turned into one big shopping trip in Waitrose, and it's all either horribly routine or stupidly outrageous, with little direction, little motivation and little inspiration. I'm just standing in the middle of the shop with my trolley completely empty and nothing to guide me around at all.

So I have decided to write one. A Write Girl, Write List; of all the things I want to do and see and feel and be before this huge shopping trip is over and I'm standing in the kitchen of life staring at my purchases and wondering why the hell I ever thought 5 tins of canned button mushrooms were a good idea. A list of hopes and dreams and ambitions; a list of the things I've always wanted and never really known I wanted before. A list that may take me some time to decide on, because I haven't got the foggiest idea where to start, or what I want, or what I need, or who I am, or how much money I have, or how much I need to buy, or even how big my trolley is. I have no idea at all.

Which - I think my dad would tell me - is exactly why I need to write one in the first place.