All I need is a pint a day

SHERWOOD KIRALY

We’re all glad the grocery workers’ strike is over; people were

suffering after being out on the street for more than four months.

And they weren’t the only ones.

The papers said the stores involved lost something like $1.5

billion during the strike. That third half-billion was me, looking

elsewhere for my Haagen-Dazs chocolate fudge brownie frozen yogurt.

I’m dependent on this stuff thanks to Patti Jo, who gave me my

first taste about a year ago. She wanted to help me get off ice

cream. I remember trying a spoonful and thinking, “Edible yogurt.

What next?”

Soon I was down at Ralph’s, standing on the bottom of the freezer

door frame and reaching up and back, knocking containers out of the

way, groping for that last hidden pint.

Only chocolate fudge brownie would do, but the company kept

introducing variations -- dulce de leche, raspberry swirl -- that

invited freezer burn and took up space previously reserved for more

deserving flavors.

Prior to the strike, I kept pace with my habit by ransacking

Pavilions, Ralph’s, Albertson’s and Wild Oats in rotation. I could

usually score in one place or another. In fact, I took it for

granted. But as George Jones has observed, you never know just how

good you got it till you ain’t got it no more.

The strike dried up 75 percent of my sources overnight.

I could have crossed the lines, I suppose; other people were doing

it for necessities. But I was afraid the picketers might look in my

bag when I came out.

I bought out Wild Oats. I went to Ralph’s when the picketers were

pulled, but it was all raspberry swirl over there. I switched to

Gelson’s for my shopping needs -- Gelson’s, where the meat prices

give you chest pains. They had chocolate fudge brownie -- for awhile.

I tried coffee flavor, on the theory that chocolate sauce can make a

lot of things right. But no.

Finally the strike ended. And I hit the circuit. Albertson’s had

some -- not enough. Off to Pavilions.

And there, where the CFB should be, was a new flavor: Black

walnut. I’m curious: How many of you have ever once felt that what

you needed was a little black walnut? What in God’s name does

chocolate have to do to establish itself?

We are happy, of course, for our friends at the grocery after all

they’ve been through. Let’s just not forget that some people are

still suffering.