It used to be that every weekend me and my lovely wife would do the mandatory shopping. I abhorred the experience because I hate fighting the crowd at these colossal Mega-Wal-K-Cost-Sam-Food-Lo-Mart-Clubs. I, trying to reason with my wife, told her that maybe she should just go alone. After all, she knows what we need and I never do. In fact, I can never find stuff that we do have.

We have a large pantry. Whenever I ask the location of a particular item, it’s invariably in the pantry. I’ve decided that there must be some Star Trek space-time continuum anomaly in our pantry because everything is in it and it shouldn’t fit:

Me: Where’s the AAA batteries?

The wife: Pantry.

Me: Where’s the vinegar?

The wife: Pantry, where it’s always been.

Me: Where’s my Les Paul?

The wife: Pantry.

Me: Where’s my car keys?

The wife: In the pantry, dammit, stop asking.

Me: Where are the dogs?

The wife: Outside or maybe in the pantry.

Me: Where’s my car?

The wife: Pantry, just like every thing else you ask about.

Me: Where’s an electable Democratic Presidential candidate?

The wife: Pantry and now you’re just being silly.

The pantry scares me. It scares me because even though every possession we have is in it, I can never find what I’m looking for. Then I call the wife in to help look for it and she immediately finds it. Much more surprising (to me and not to the wife) is that I’m always looking right at whatever item I am looking for but can’t see it. Must be that space-time continuum thing phasing stuff in and out of reality.

The wife didn’t like my suggestion that she go shopping alone, she wanted me to go. Then, in an effort to ensure one of us enjoys our Saturday morning, I told her I would go if she gave me a list and that she could stay home. Again, she didn’t like that idea because (even if I have a list) I’ll forget stuff, like food. Defeated, I was resided in the fact that I would spend every Saturday morning at a Mega-Wal-K-Cost-Sam-Food-Lo-Mart-Club.

On shopping day, we’d wonder around the Mega-Wal-K-Cost-Sam-Food-Lo-Mart-Club and the wife was always shocked at the bill. As we were checking out, the barrage of questions from my wife would come: Who put the Nutter-Butters in? Do we need that? I wouldn’t answer since I thought it was rhetorical because there were only two of us shopping and, yes, I want err we need that.

In the course of various shopping excursions and one jar of pickled sausages, four packs of Nutter-Butters, a USB mouse, a five pound box of Blow Pops, three boxes of Oreos, an umbrella, a couple of gun magazines, a video game, many cases of beer, teens of candy bars, various soft drinks, and one remote controlled robot too many, the wife one day gets stuck shopping alone because I had made plans with a friend. She realized that when I’m not shopping with her, that we spend about 25% less than when I go.

I don’t go shopping much any more (because I’m not invited) unless she needs me to lift heavy things. And that is always to Lowe’s or some place I actually want to go. I think that’s why women get married. They need someone to lift heavy things, mow, and get really ornery lids off of jars.

I don’t miss shopping all that much.

Posted in uncategorized on July 2nd, 2003 by SayUncle | RSS 2.0 |