Milk Eggs Vodka: Grocery Lists Lost And Found

You were described by Advertising Age as an oddball/genius. Would that be an accurate description?

(laughs) That’s what they said, yes, and of course, I agree. I am a project maker; a collector, maker and breaker of things. I’m randomly inspired by things I see or find or hear, or overhear – things just pop into my head and I like to act on it, if I can.

Did you have any idea this project would strike such a chord in people?

No, not really. I started doing the grocery list thing in 1997 or so and a couple years later, I put it online and it became clear that people were strangely attracted to it. People started sending me things and contributing on their own and it got linked up on the Internet a lot more than I thought it would. It just mushroomed from there. People will take anything as an excuse to waste time at work and it’s really good for that because you can click through thousands of pages and be entertained.

How did the idea to collect discarded grocery lists come to you?

I always describe it as a moment of silly serendipity. I was literally just walking out of the grocery store and I saw a scrap of paper on the ground. I figured I’d pick it up, you know; be a good citizen. It turned out it was a grocery list and I thought, “Wow, that’s kind of interesting.”

The list itself wasn’t that interesting (it was as mundane as it comes and I’m not even sure which one it is in the collection now), but I decided I’d pick ‘em up whenever I saw grocery lists at the grocery store.