In an inspiring story out of Iowa City, Kendall Whitehall is currently using her coronavirus quarantine to compose the most beautiful masterpiece of all: The best grocery list ever known to man.

What a stunning achievement!

“I want to make an outline for creating a really interesting chicken stock before anything else,” muses Kendall. “So my grocery list has a section for that. I know some people would group their list by sections of the store, but I’m just not that expected.”

She laughed for a moment and pushed her hair behind her ear with a pencil, one of those old yellow ones with the pink eraser that you hardly see anymore.

“I guess some people would type the list on their phone,” she goes on. “But I’m just too sensitive to all these screens. I crave a tactile touch. The sound of the pencil on the paper, that’s how I know I want onions.”

Kendall’s list goes on in no particular order: “A bit of something salty or crunchy, something you could throw on a salad or maybe even in a sandwich if it was that kind of day.”

So far Kendall’s list is nearly 50,000 words and consists of 12 chapters. She’s not sure if or when she’ll ever get to the store.

“I could die here making this list. And honestly I’d be okay with that. I’d be happy here, thinking about whether the store will have run out of eggs. Isn’t that poetic? That the true joy is in the anticipation of a thing?!”