I've been married for 60 years and clearly remember the grocery prices from 1965. That's why it HURTS to go to the market today! My 5 cent Jello is gone, so is the 49 cent a pound coffee, along with the dozen eggs, 3 for $1.00. Oh, I laugh, know that prices have steadily gone up (25 cent bread), know that our Social Security and my husband's retirement fund is enough to keep us going, but it's a much more complicated world.

We used to get Green Stamps for shopping, paste them in a book and voila! Soon I had a card table! Nowadays, you have to have a cellphone, load it up with "bargains" and "values" and make sure you clip those coupons, and the store website online knows just what brings you in to shop. ("Don't you want more cottage cheese?")

I bet Cleopatra never had to think of the price of lettuce vs. making sandwiches without it!