Aerosol

My grocery store starts with the bakery, the produce, the organic stuff, then dairy, then the gigantic inexplicable gift-shop thing that takes up as much room as the produce section. By the time I leave the produce and the organic section I am feeling pretty good about my environmental footprint. I found an all-natural non-aerosol air freshener that smells like vanilla (score)and I suck it up and pay more for organic milk because, hey, milk is kind of an intimate thing when you think about it, and even my dad who always exercises great fiscal restraint gets organic milk. But after the journey across the great gift-shop divide I am now in the land of things that come in boxes and don't qualify for the organic section. And I'm buying PAM. That's right. Synthetic oil in an aerosol can. Okay, this one says "all natural" but it's still an aerosol can. I struggle and waver, but half of the recipes in my favorite "Eating Healthy" cook book call for the stuff. I put it in the cart next to my locally grown apples, my organic milk and my non-aerosol vanilla air freshener and the integrity of my whole shopping trip comes into question. My cart is tainted now, and this is just the first row of the processed food section. I wheel my cart through the gift-shop-thing on the way out and see a reusable pump spray for oil in the "schmancy cooking gear" section. It's $25. And here I've already blown my pocket money for the week on CDs and books. I will save up, I decide, for some future redemption.