Found a 1973 grocery list tucked into a cookbook at the library sale

My neighbor, who's 82, saw it and said 'That's not just a list, that's a week's pay.' She explained how the prices for milk and bread back then meant the person buying it was really budgeting. Do you think people leave these things on purpose, or is it always an accident?

3 comments

3 Comments

river3201mo ago

Man, that hits hard. Your neighbor is totally right, it's a record of someone's real life and what things cost them. I lean toward it being an accident most times, just stuff left in a book and forgotten. But the cool part is how it stops being just a lost list the second someone else finds it. Then it's like a message, even if it wasn't meant to be. Makes you really see the person behind it.

alex3071mo ago

I used to think they were just lost, but now I see them as little time capsules left on purpose.

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alex3071mo ago

Yeah but dont you think that makes it even more intentional? @river320, like you said, they stop being just lost things once someone finds them. I found a grocery list from 1982 in a copy of _Dune_ once, typed out on this old manual typewriter with little notes in the margins about sock sizes and a reminder to call someone named Betty. That feels way too specific to just be dropped by accident, like somebody stuffed it in there on purpose hoping some weirdo decades later would piece their life together.