Summer Soap (Episode 4): On to a crucial matter, the student digs fridge

Shopping at Tesco was quickly turning into a nightmare. Now she was out of her hotel and in her new apartment, Natalie was staring down the problem she’d been dreading for months. Feeding herself.

The American expectation was that most university students would pay for a meal plan which gave them access to campus dining halls for their breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

After learning that University College Cork had no equivalent option, it became clear to both Natalie and her mom that she needed to become much more familiar with the kitchen before she set off for Ireland.

She’d known how to complete basic cooking tasks individually, it was assembling those individual components to make a full meal that she lacked experience in. To her credit, her mom had dedicated most of the summer evenings to teaching Natalie how to fend for herself.

Her mom’s efforts had borne fruit, and Natalie could now boast of a substantial repertoire of nutritious, hearty meals that most university students could only dream of.

If only she knew how to shop for them.

Natalie could barely navigate the grocery stores back home, and that was armed with a list written by her mom with the intent to feed three people. Natalie was just the one person, and she was pretty sure she couldn’t eat a family-sized pan of enchiladas before it went bad.

It’s okay, she’d meal plan later. Today she’d just gather the basic, quick standby foods for lazier days.

Natalie walked back and forth along the back wall of the store until she found the aisle labelled ‘Cereal’.

The shelves were empty. Natalie looked around. She’d been in here for two minutes. How was she already failing?

She went to the next aisle, then to another. It seemed half of the shelves were empty, or at least carrying items completely at odds with what the signs labelled them. It looked like Natalie had chosen to shop on the same day Tesco wanted to reformat their store.

She thought of leaving for Merchant’s Quay, but her basket was holding enough toiletries and cleaning supplies for her to feel invested, so she decided to hedge her bets and keep a keen eye on the shelves as she looked through the aisles one by one.

She found instant noodles where there should have been dog food, and olive oil where there was once toothpaste, which after an hour of aimless wandering she was willing to call a win.

She headed to the cashiers to find the longest self check-out line she’d ever seen. In fairness, it seemed to be moving pretty quickly, but Natalie wasn’t sure she trusted herself with scanning her own groceries just yet. Besides, most of those people were carrying totes and backpacks while she didn’t. For all she knew, bringing their own bag was a requirement for the self check-out line, and she didn’t want to hold everyone up just because she didn’t know the protocol.

She waited in one of the cashier lines, even if she felt a little silly with her armful of items among the customers pushing carts filled to the brim. She managed to purchase what little groceries she’d found without incident, but the price of plastic bags was enough to convince her to buy a tote of her own at the earliest opportunity.

Now that she was putting things away, perhaps it was for the best that Natalie could only find half of the groceries she wanted.

After visiting two other grocers, Natalie had accumulated what she considered the basic foodstuffs. Bread, oats, and a bundle of bananas, but even that seemed to be cutting it close with storage.

She would be spending the school year in an apartment shared with five other students, which meant having very little cabinet space to speak of.

Natalie had been one of the first students to move in the previous morning, which meant that she got first pick. She chose the ones closest to the fridge, in which she was only willing to take half a shelf. She already felt a little guilty taking up some of the counter space for a toaster.

The problem she faced now was the litre of milk she’d found at Lidl. She opened the fridge to put it away, but her options for it were fewer than she’d hoped. It was too tall to put anywhere other than the fridge door, but it was already occupied by juices, cold brews and a carton of yogurt. She mentally kicked herself for forgetting to pick up her own yogurt on her odyssey for groceries, then wondered whether it was socially acceptable to move someone else’s food without permission.

After minutes of conflict, she ended up moving the other student’s yogurt to one of the higher shelves and left a Post-It on the fridge apologising for the inconvenience, in addition to informing the other tenants that they were welcome to use her toaster as they wished.