There are some books you just gobble right up like a perfect mint chocolate brownie from Starbucks. When you see it, you have to grab it! Mmmmm…Starbucks mint chocolate brownie! Want! Want!

Okay…brownie lust being tamped down…besides stuffing my face with Starbucks last week, I snapped up Hilary Carlip’s A La Cart: The Secret Lives of Grocery Shoppers. Now this is one of those books you find on a table near the cash registers at Barnes & Noble with a sign “Funny and Humorous” with things like Cake Wrecks or A Room of Jean’s Own. You flick through it and think to yourself “yeah that’s funny but is it $17.95 of funny?”.

Don’t feel bad if you did the same thing back in 2008 when A La Cart hit the bookstores. The whole premise of the book is characters based on grocery lists the author found and saved. I mean just how funny would someone find my shopping list from Saturday morning getting the last minute items for Blacklight and I’s holiday party? “wraps, mistletoe, chocolate, fabric, black ribbon, forks, dessert!”

Well if you’re the chameleon Hillary Carlip you snap up that list from the depths of the Stop & Shop or Price Chopper cart and stash it in your files. And then with the aid of some amazing stylists and makeup artists created characters so unique you’re constantly checking the author photo to convince yourself that yes, the same person who is perfectly channeling Suicide Girl Heather (which if I’m not mistaken is a certain Miss Von Tease’s birth name) is also the retired Lloyd filling his days with all the chores his late wife took care.

Each person has just a few pages devoted to them but in those few pages, golly can’t you see the people you might run into doing your own errands. I’m sure I’ve seen Woody hanging around the 7-11. And don’t you work with a Bernadette? Or gotten an email from a Karen? Guaranteed you’ll never look at a discarded grocery list the same way again!