Food Issues

There are many dirty little secrets in Nova Scotia and here is one. There is no such thing as grocery delivery service. Nor can you buy groceries online. Here is another one. The day of our car accident three years ago we were coming up with a car filled with groceries. We lost almost all that food that day. In fact when we went to sell the car for parts, there were still broken eggs in it, frozen from the deep freeze of the cruelest of winters.

It has been hard for me to not equate going grocery shopping with the accident, especially in the winter. If I could order my food online, I would. If like many other places I have lived pay a delivery service to bring our food home for us, I would. There is nothing easy about life here. What ends up happening is I resist buying food. I resist leaving the house. My husband offers to take me and I am too scared to go. My post traumatic stress kicks in and I wait and wait until there is nothing left.

The day I finally went out and got food, even the little bits of edibles in my fridge in the photo above were gone. I had to do something.

Normally I cart food home on my sore back with my injured shoulders. I am feeling more like glass than usual so instead I went and bought a ton of groceries and took a cab home:



There is another big storm on its way (big surprise) and we were even out of toilet paper. I absolutely hate taking a cab because it seems so silly. When the cabbies realize that we are only going a few blocks, I can sense it all feels futile. In the past I have attempted to give big tips and sometimes had the money thrown back at me. I do not know the social mores here. This cab driver forgot to turn the meter on and by the time he realized, we were at my house. I gave him a nice chunk of change and he brought the food to my front door. I could have cried.

Until you are housebound, you have no idea just how far away the world is when you can not drive. I live in a place that really could not care less for non-drivers. There is no infrastructure, no thought, no understanding. In Nova Scotia, you must drive your own car. If you can't, don't live here.

So I did my best. I still hurt my shoulder lifting one of the bags but I have food now and I figured out a way to get it that didn't trigger my post traumatic stress. It always pisses me off that none of the grocery stores offer delivery even to the disabled but I worked my way around it for now.

Even when I lived on Eagle Mountain in BC I could get grocery delivery. There was no signal so I could not pay with debit but they would bring our food into our apartment at 1400 feet all the way from Vancouver. Once again, it is quite clear that not only is Nova Scotia an entirely different country, it appears to be an alien planet.

Update: Natniles via Twitter mentioned that the fabulous store Pete's does do home delivery but sadly, I do not live near a Pete's but I should have known if anyone did food delivery it would be them, they rock!