Mars and Venus Go To The Grocery

Kidlet is out whooping it up at Gymboree and what do her parents do? Why go grocery shopping together of course. Yeah, I know doing a little whooping it up by ourselves at home sounds like a better option, but we needed a turkey. Priorities, sigh....

So I hop in the car with my 4 sheets of double sided chicken scratched paper with all things needed to make turkey fest 2005 a success. We arrive, enter the store and I give him a stern look, we are here for business, no goofing around. "Are you with me?", I ask. He answers, "Yes..I don't know what you are talking about".

We travel successfully through produce. He even helps me find tomatoes and lemons. Good start. Then I feel him straying. He says, "Hey, we haven't had romaine in a while, I'll get some for dinner." Ok, I say attempting to keep peace, although we are here on the turkey fest mission. I am not in the mood for, "Oh these exotic mushrooms look interesting."

I finish selecting fresh herbs for the turkey. I turn to ask him to get some green beans. He's gone...grrr. Where is he? I get the beans myself. I then have to wander looking for him for 5 minutes only to find him playing with the live lobsters. He says,"24.99 a lb. for chilean sea bass, I could buy a car for that." I say, "focus dear, we have a long way to go."

We enter Meats...he is a major carnivore. I attempt to engage his obsession with meat and channel it into 1 1/2 lbs. of ground turkey, a real turkey, and 1 lb. chorizo sausage all IN THE CART. I am not successful...I turn my head for one minute and he is weighing his options with ham. We then need to have a 4 minute family meeting about why we are not having cheap salty ham for thanksgiving. Go pick a turkey...damn'it.

Once again, I direct the conversation to turkey selection. He has a definite opinion, but it is not the one on sale. We compromise. But, then he feels the need to closely examine the display of oysters...definitely not on the list. Then he informs me that we need tuna cans filled with oysters for a snack tonight. I say NO, that is disgusting. I have to tell him why restaurant quality Oysters Rockefeller is not the same thing as grocery store canned oysters. Unbelievable. I win this round, good thing because the little disgusting cans are $6.59 each. He had 4 cans in his hand before I talked him down.

We head off towards stuffing. I decide he can exercise his culinary muscle here and choose a flavor for the bread crumbs. He completely sees through me and does a by pass move heading for the salad dressings. I say we already have 4 types of salad dressing at home. He reminds me that we don't have garlic cesear with parmesean bits. I glare at him "my head is going to spin and pop off" if you don't stay WITH ME.

He retaliates with "You are going to make potatoes for dinner tonight right?" I now know he is enjoying this little torture session. I say no, unless you go get more potatoes. He mentions that we have potatoes in the cart. HELLO, those are for Thanksgiving, the whole reason we are here. He volunteers to go get another bag of potatoes...good thinking I say with a sneer. I pass the children's drop off room and silently wonder if you can drop off your 40 year old husband.

We rally in the check out line. He grumbles about having to wait because there is one whole person in front of us. This person has decided to pay with a check. Apparently my husband did not even know that you could still pay for something with a personal check. I silently wonder if he should run for public office, he is so out of touch with some things. I mention that Britney Spears is going to leave her husband, or that is what the Star says anyway. He says, "Britney who?".

In the car he says, "Wow, how long has it been since we've been to the grocery store just you and I?" Probably about 3 years, since Ava came home. "Ok, that was fun", he says.

I am seriously worried we will become even more pathetic in our old age, when the kids are grown and gone. He will still want to accompany me to the grocery, just for blood sport.

And that is why Mars and Venus can only go grocery shopping together once every three years.