Catholic Guilt Struck Again, But I Mostly Ignored it

I was at Giant Eagle today. It’s a strange name for a grocery store and people here often pronounce it as Jiiiihn Iggle, but at least it’s not a Piggly Wiggly.

I was browsing because I just got my refund from Social Security and was feeling as flush as a retiree on Social Security can feel, so I decided to stock up a bit. I was looking at the corned beef because Monday is St. Patrick’s Day and I’ve never met a holiday I don’t love. Plus, according to Ancestry.com I am 2% Irish AND I’m having guests over on Sunday, so I was pondering what to cook.

I decided that since the corned beef was 4.99 a pound (and this wasn’t even the name brand kind) I thought I would go the healthy route and forget red meat. That didn’t stop me from shuffling through half of the packages of corned beef to see if there was one small enough that I could rationalize buying it. There was one that was about the size of those little white paper napkins they give you at ice cream shops and even it was $9.00. So, I put away the napkin sized corned beef then noticed one that was three times its size. I just looked at it out of curiosity to see how much people who want more than a tablespoon of beef will pay.

I looked, did a double take, then a triple take at this corned beef which was easily 5 or 6 pounds. But, apparently an angel from the discount store in the sky decided to cut me a break because the listed price was $0.20. Yes, 20 cents.

My immediate thought was, Oh I better take this to the guys in the meat department and tell them this is mismarked. That’s how good a job the nuns did in elementary school at St. Joseph’s in New Brighton! Any other normal human’s first thought would be to immediately hide it in their shopping cart and look to see if there were any other corned beef errors.

This type of good Catholic girl thinking has gotten me in trouble before. Once my ex-husband and I were eating at Johnny Rockets, a burger spot we loved in the Burbank Mall. When we got the bill, I noticed they forgot to charge us for the fries and said, “We should tell them.” My ex looked at me like I was from a different planetary system and said, “Are you nuts?” That clearly meant he was not going to mention it.

So, I went along with it, but the guilt haunted me, so I asked Roger Barkley, one of the morning show guys I was on with (who happened to own a restaurant) how much a restaurant loses when french fries walk out the door free. Since it was morning radio, they turned it into a very big deal and I ended up having to waitress for a couple hours at the Johnny Rockets we pilfered from. (It was actually really fun and lots of listeners ended up coming by to see me work.) But I was a little embarrassed to have to confess to the manager that we got away with free fries.

Then once when my son and I were on a walk, we went past a house with a car sitting in the driveway slightly haphazardly. We looked at the ground by the drivers door and a 20 dollar bill was on the ground. Two thoughts went through my head.

#1. Wow, that must have been a fun night. I wonder if I should keep it?

#2. We should walk up to the front door, knock and tell them we found this on the ground on their driveway outside their vehicle. It will set a good example for my son.

I’ll let you guess what we did. Yes, we took the 20 to the door, where a very flummoxed man, who’d clearly just woken up because he was sleeping off the night before, mumbled a confused, “Thank you.”

So, either life has jaded me, or I’ve wised up a little because my thought today was, when the universe hands you something, whether it’s free fries, a twenty dollar bill or a practically free corned beef, you shut up, take it and say, Thank you universe!

I even scanned it first, just in case the scanner realized I was a criminal, but it came up at $0.20, so I smiled, and kept on checking out the cabbage, carrots and potatoes. And, you know what? I only feel a little guilty. I figure I made up for it with the $10.99 I spent on pistachios.

Either way, I wish you a very Happy St. Patrick’s Day. I hope you get the pot of gold, or corned beef at the end of the rainbow like I did. I even bought a green t-shirt at the local store called Yinzers that says, Drink Up Yinz Bitches. (People in Pittsburgh say yinz instead of y’all, or you guys.) I’m debating whether to proudly wear it to a party I’m going to on Monday, or keep it in my purse until I figure out how many people I’ll offend. It’s funny that my Catholic guilt was all up in arms over potential theft, yet had no problem with my profane Drink up Yinz Bitches t-shirt purchase. Sorry Sisters of St. Joseph, you did your best.

I think it’s pretty funny, but it may not be the classiest way to make an entrance. Let me know what you think I should do and for God’s sake, have a Happy St. Patrick’s Day!!! Be sure to make those Ted Lasso biscuits, they’re the perfect St. Paddy’s Day dessert!

And corned beef is the easiest thing on earth to cook. Throw it in a pot with some water to cover it, and the little packet of herbs they give you and let it cook for 3 hours. The last hour you can add potatoes, carrots and the last half hour, add the cabbage cut into wedges. It’s delicious.

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