We went grocery shopping tonight, the Nordic Warrior Queen and I (it turns out she hates it when I call her that). Shopping is always an adventure, especially after a couple of beers at Chili’s as a pre-Basha’s lubricant. The Nordic Warrior Queen insists on going down every…fucking…aisle, just so we don’t miss anything. I try to be a gentleman and push the cart for her, but I admit that I sometimes get distracted by the condiments, imported cheeses, or pickled vegetables and leave the cart in the middle of the aisle, whereupon she assumes control and then two aisles later bitches at me for not pushing the damn thing. I can’t win.
Another marital fly in the ointment is this: after she has spent fifteen minutes reading every bit of information on calorie count, saturated fats, sodium levels, sugar content, carbohydrates and assorted nutritional fine print on all seventeen brands of potato chip, dairy product, or fruit juice, she tells me “that one” and moves on. It’s left to me to grab the goods and catch up to her with our purchase.
But here’s the rub: sometimes I have a hard time deciding which box, bag, or bottle to take. Why, you ask?
Well, I don’t like the ones in front, because they’re the same ones that everyone else on the planet has handled. And the stockboys are supposed to rotate the goods, but you know they don’t so the back row is definitely out. The packages in the middle are like the Island of Misfit Toys – nobody wants them. So I usually try to go for row two, sometimes three, but you have to be careful, and avoid any boxes with smashed corners or packages that look like they’ve been manhandled or otherwise mistreated. And then there are the dates to be concerned with. It’s difficult sometimes.
When I caught up to her at the checkout line, she mentioned something about medication for my condition, but I ignored her snide comments, suddenly realizing that the box of Wheat Thins I had in my hands didn’t look quite right and ran back to Aisle 12 for a replacement. After all, I’m only being careful.