The four-dollar free lemon

Yesterday we went to the farmer's market, which should be a nice relaxing thing to do on the first day back to real life, when you've been to the supermarket in the morning but carefully not even ventured down the fruit'n'veg aisle, because you knew you'd get superior produce in the afternoon, and a nice happy family outing to boot.

Mabel was feeling existential on the way there, and kept insisting to Monkey that he doesn't exist. He took it quite well.

It was, of course, a million degrees out. I had, of course, forgotten my hat, because it was momentarily overcast when we left the house, and I've been out of the country. The children were, of course, hungry and thirsty as soon as they got out of the car.

We got eggs, because the eggs always go first. I got an iced coffee because the coffee guy is beside the egg man. I bought some tomatoes or something. Then I acceded to demands and headed for the lemonade and doughnuts. Instead of doughnuts, though, I bought a slice of nice-looking chocolate cake, because it claimed to have stealth zucchini in it. Mabel rejected it, but Monkey liked his half and I got to eat the rest. Score.

I bought a lemonade for them to share, even though I knew Monkey probably wouldn't drink it because it had bits in it. As I stood at the lemonade stall I realised that I'd over-enthusiastically decided in the morning that I should make my own hummus now that I have a real full-sized food processor, and had bought a tin of garbanzos for the purpose. But I had no lemon. I asked the nice man if he'd sell me a lemon, from that pile he was busy gutting for lemonade. He very kindly tossed me one, so when paying for the drink I gave him an extra dollar.

As predicted, Monkey didn't like the lemonade. Mabel didn't either. But it was hot, so while we watched the model trains go around the table, they both munched all the ice out of it, and moved on happily to the ice cubes left in my empty iced coffee.

So basically, I just paid four dollars for a lemon and some ice chips. I'm sure there's a more economical way to go about this.

And I have no garlic, so I still can't make hummus.