Shout-out to smijca for the blurb title.

The Girardi offspring have been entrusted with the task of grocery shopping. Of course, Helen's only loosened her grip so much; it still seems to take three teenagers to accomplish the task. Speaking of teenagers…shouldn't one of these kids have had a birthday by now? Maybe they were all born during the summer months. Aw, summer birthdays. I'll try to keep my resentment about having a winter birthday bottled up. In the Great White North, winter birthdays suck, especially if you, you know, hate winter. My sister's birthday is at the end of June, and she always got to have pool parties and parties at the play park and I don't know what-all. School was also always out by her birthday, whereas my birthday falls midterm, so I almost always had an exam on my birthday or the day after, or a paper due on my birthday or the day after. No, I'm hardly bitter at all. Man, I'm not five seconds into the show and already I've digressed so very much.

Anyway, Kevin's commandeering the cart and list, and Joan and Luke are grabbing items. Kevin requests some instant mashed potatoes and Joan, grabbing the box, expresses her dumsquizzlement: "Those potatoes are from a box?" Kevin: "Yep. And apparently, there's a bomb that can blow up the entire world." Heh. But dude: Fat Tony eats instant garlic mashed potatoes? I don't think so. Luke's located the marinated artichoke hearts. Joan: "Those were from a can?" Kevin: "Did you think Mom was running a kibbutz?" Hee. He's really on today. Joan: "Whoa, look: a picture of a whole artichoke. They're freaky-looking, huh?" Kevin wants to get to the jars of spaghetti sauce. Joan, stunned: "No. No!" Kevin laughs: "You went for it!" Joan smacks him in the head, pretty hard, actually. I felt sorry for him for a moment, but then the whole rest of the show happened, and I couldn't help but feel he needed to be slapped much, much harder. Luke wants them to hustle along, because he has to call Glynis. Why? Are the futzomorphs about to emerge from their chrysalides? Kevin says the next item on the list is an economy-sized tube of hemorrhoid cream. Without any discussion the kids all start doing Rock, Paper, Scissors to decide who has to endure the embarrassment of picking the item off the shelf. A girl gathering produce nearby notices them and says, "Kevin?" He looks surprised: "Beth." She's played by Kimberly McCullough, with whom I'm not personally familiar, but she got a very warm reception on the forums from General Hospital fans. She's totally the girl next door.