I’m not the most knowledgeable grocery shopper, but I know there is a conspiracy in the food industry.

Yesterday my wife, Lily, and I dropped in on our son who is living about 300 km’s away from us. The plan was to spend the night, have breakfast together in the morning and then be off.

When we got there I was a little hungry and Mike, at one point, said he was feeling a little hungry as well.

Looking through the cupboards, we observed a typical twenty-something male’s kitchen.

It reminded me of Old Mother Hubbard’s kitchen – she didn’t have anything in her cupboards either.

Mike had an early appointment so he needed to get to bed. I needed to stretch my legs after a disappointing finish to the Leafs’ game so I said to Lily, “Let’s go shopping”.

We didn’t have much time but we hit Walmart because it was open late.

I don’t normally go on grocery shopping trips with Lily because I put things in the cart that she would not buy on her own. They’re usually things that aren’t good for me.

But there I was with an assignment to find hot dogs and hot dog buns.

It wasn’t too hard; I quickly found the large hot dogs that came five in a pack. Mike just has to feed himself so that was a good number to get.

Then I went searching for buns. I found them in another part of the store.

They don’t have the hot dogs and the hot dog buns close together, and I know why – it’s so you don’t see the discrepancy when you buy the buns!

The grocery people are hoping that, by the time you find the buns, you will have forgotten how many hot dogs came in the package.

But being the keen sharp-minded shopper that I am, I noticed right away.

I had just tossed a package of 5 hot dogs into the cart and now I was holding in my hand a package of 8 hot dog buns.

At this point we should take a poll: Does anyone else think that these are weird numbers? Why 5 hot dogs, and why in the world 8 buns?

I’m not sure why they do that. You need the same number of dogs as buns!

I did the math – you and I would need to buy 8 packs of dogs and 5 packages of buns to have a bun for every hot dog.

That’s 40, by the way, and if you were feeding a football team I can see you buying that many. But for a family or for a single guy? Who would do that? – no one!

And who would leave you with extra buns so that you need go out and buy more hot dogs … only to need more buns to finish them off?

It’s a conspiracy.

Here’s the thing: We are driven to get more – more things, more experiences, more money, more … you name it! There is always something more we want. This desire for more is never satisfied, and it takes away from being at peace with yourself and with God. He wants you to be satisfied with where you are and what you have, and from that place of satisfaction He will add the more.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What is keeping you from being satisfied? Leave you comments below.