March 29, 2024

Zero Points

Even though I live alone, I tend to do most of my grocery shopping at Costco. I always seem to be able to find what I need at the House of Large Sizes. When you’re all by yourself a 24-pack of toilet paper goes a long way, especially if you make a point to use the bathroom at work whenever possible. Still, I end up at Costco at least once a month to stock up on the essentials, like sparkling water and coffee.

Roaming through the aisles last weekend I ran into an old friend — Progresso chicken and rice canned soup. In college and shortly afterward when I was desperately and earnestly poor, Progresso’s zero points soup was a staple of my diet. Short on flavor and long on value, it had just enough nutrition to keep you going, and as a blessing for folks counting calories with Delta Burke at Weight Watchers, it didn’t count against your total.

A case of eight cans of chicken and rice soup sells for $11.49 without tax at the retail giant. In college we’d buy cases four at a time with my mom’s Costco card, taking turns stacking them into the trunk until the worn out suspension was almost totally compressed.

We ate soup for almost every meal, except breakfast, which was seldom more than a cup of coffee laced with cream and brown sugar. Every other meal was soup, with a handful of saltine crackers mixed in. When I went home to see my parents and do my laundry mom would always hand me a box of the crackers, sometimes with a jar of peanut butter.

I was lucky enough to have a job in the restaurant industry in those days, either working in the back of the house or bartending. Every shift meant a free meal. Crystal worked at the school’s concession stand, and after game nights she’d bring back grocery bags filled with unsold hot dogs and garbage bags full of popcorn. With a cold Busch Light, it was a feast on par with the Last Supper.

We bought everything in bulk back then, cases of soups sitting side by side cases of beer on the kitchen counter. I’d reheat the cans in our filthy microwave, endlessly reusing the same plastic container. To save time I never washed my soup bowl out, I’d just add another layer of soup on top of the last one.

We might have been poor but we were seldom unhappy then. Like Depression-era farmers headed for California, we knew good times and prosperity were just around the corner. With a college degree, the world would be at our fingertips, even if we were mired in enough debt to last several lifetimes.

We lived high on the hog whenever we could despite our meager bank accounts. On a good Friday night, there’d be money for a case of beer, with enough left over for a cheap bottle of whiskey. Everyone we knew was poor, and like John Steinbeck’s paisanos we lived elbow to elbow with another.

I miss those days sometimes. My life is a lot different than it was 15 years ago. I sleep on a mattress every night now instead of a futon. When we throw parties they’re always a little bit lavish, with plenty of food and enough top-shelf booze to open our own bar. Instead of sharing a house with five other friends I live alone, and usually, I have enough money to use my credit cards without wincing. It has been a long time since I’ve donated plasma or sold textbooks back to the bookstore.

Even so, I always strive to never get too far from where we came from. Which is why I loaded a case of the ol’ zero points into my cart at Costco last weekend. At home I pulled out a can, dumped the contents into a plastic container and dropped it into the microwave. It was everything I remembered; long summers, cheap futons and cheaper whiskey. All that was missing was a Busch Light and a box of saltine crackers from Mom.

Contact David Dolmage
at ddolmage@newtondailynews.com