MILK EGGS VODKA [By Bill Keaggy]

Not a grocery list, but a hunter’s to-do list. I mean, the marriage is pretty much doomed if you have to remind yourself to “Say goodbye to wife” — right? And you must not be very good at hunting if you have to remind yourself to kill the deer. Twice. Ha! Actually, Killdeer is a town in North Dakota, but it’s funnier to pretend he was reminding himself to kill a deer, right?

This must be a shopping list for Jim Jarmusch’s new film, “Formula and Cigarettes.” If not, I feel sorry for that poor baby. Stop smoking, bad mom! This is in the “Sad Lists” chapter on page 52.

“Popcycles” — they’re cold … and FAST!!!

Yep. Poop bags.

I saw [Milk Eggs Vodka] in Borders yesterday and nearly choked. Well, not choked. I certainly did a double-take. This is a specialized version of the “Found” phenomenon.

Anyway, William Cohen sees poetry in some of the lists he’s found. Check it out.

Straight-Edge caffeine freak?

More grocerylists.org reader mail!

I don’t know how I found your website but I’m glad I did…I got some wonderful, solitary laughs out of some of these (not to mention that reading them is incredibly satisfying to one’s curiosity!) I will be on the lookout for shopping lists and will try to send them your way, though I doubt I will find ones as funny as some I saw here on your website! I will tell my friends about this fun spot of humor on the internet!
—Tiffiany

A blast from the past from earlier this year in the Washington Times:

Want to put together an insider’s rating for refrigerator magnets? It’s been done. Hope to assemble the all-time most intriguing items that ever appeared on a grocery list? That’s been done, too. In fact, it’s a 240-page book. “Milk Eggs Vodka,” by Bill Keaggy will be published by HOW Books in a few months, based around the author’s collection of grocery lists he found abandoned in carts, blowing around in the Safeway parking lot or flapping feebly in the gutter. The enterprising Mr. Keaggy has assembled and organized 1,300 of these lists to reveal that a surprising percentage of Americans do not know how to spell mayonnaise, banana, anchovy and yogurt.

Now, if you know you’re having spaghetti, why do you even need to make this list?

I’ll be nice today. No comment.

A couple months ago I did an email interview with Marty Weil of Ephemera, a site that explores the world of old paper:

Bill Keaggy is a collector, maker, and breaker of things. He is the author of the soon-to-be release Milk Eggs Vodka: Grocery Lists Lost and Found. Recently, I spoke to Bill about grocery lists, his new book, and ephemera.

Found your website and loved it! Made me laugh almost to tears :)
—Laura

Hi there! I just found your site and it’s hysterical! I had this shopping list that I found in WalMart in Niagara Falls, NY scanned already b/c I posted it to a group on Live Journal called ‘found objects.’ Enjoy!!
—Dana R.

JUST GOT MY COPY OF YOUR BOOOOOOOK… MY MOM WAS LAUGHING AT ME ‘CAUSE I WAS LAUGHING SO HARD… GOOD JOB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
—JEN

Well, duh!

This is one of the original lists from the collection: #15, in fact! And here’s my requisite smart-ass comment: “Two cans of ‘cream of salary soup.’ Now that’s just like eating money.” Ha! This is another bonus, web-only list that didn’t end up in the book.

So says Nik:

Voyeurism rocks. Check out these often-humorous discarded grocery lists.