Grocery Tales

We got to go to an actual grocery store today. Meaning some place that sells food that doesn't come pre-prepared in a bag. This particular grocery store, Lunardi's, has an absolutely fabulous butcher counter. Not a meat counter, mind you, but a butcher counter. It's prectically the entire back of the store.

They also have little 1/4-size shopping carts with flags on them that say "Shopper in Training". The Childrens love these carts, but they act like lunatics when they get them. This being Saturday, I am responsible for 100% of the childcare when leaving the house. This is because The Mrs. takes care of The Childrens during the week. Try as I might, I have not been able to convince The Mrs. that she should handle all my work-related emails and phonecalls during the weekend since I handle them all during the week, but this is just one of those little things you learn to live with.

After much whining and complaining and promising to be good, I let The Childrens each have a cart. They behaved very well, oddly enough.

A little aside here. The Mrs. just came down out of the shower and said, "Where's my movie and my drink?" Then she said, "I've decided to let you be altruistic. The happiest marriages are the ones where the husband is altruistic."

So I said, "No. The happiest marriages are the ones where the wife is dead and there are no kinds."

Now I have to go make her drink... Be right back.

The Mrs. likes the Black Russian. Only she likes it with double the Kahlua and poured over crushed ice with cherries. We don't seem to have any cherries today. I'm sure that will count against my altruism.

Now where was I... Oh yes, I let The Childrens each have their own carts, and this greatly increased the entertainment value of the trip. When we were in the bread aisle, we needed to get white bread, and HannieC grabbed a big loaf of Wonder Bread. I guess it's called "Wonder Bread Classic" nowadays. I said, "No no. That's not the kind we get." See, The Mrs. is kind of a bread snob, always insiting upon buying Orowheat bread. Funny thing is that she eats exclusively non-white bread, yet still buys fru-fru white bread. I think this is what happens if you don't have to work for your money, but I don't know for sure, always having had to work for my money since a long time ago.

So the Sara Lee guy is there stocking up the Sara Lee products on the shelves in between the Wonder Bread and the Orowheat, and he's watching me argue with HannieC about what bread we're getting, and she's already got the Wonder bread in her cart and everything. Eventually, The Mrs. ambles by and says that HannieC can get her Wonder Bread and that I should get a loaf of the Orowheat white bread for myself. Then the Sara Lee guy pipes up and says in reference to HannieC, "She's just practicing up for when she's married and her husband never gets to win an argument." Then he went back to stocking shelves.

Later, we had filled up HannieC's cart with dairy, and we had to hit the beer section. So I plopped a 12-pack of Beck's, Americas favorite German Beer into MaxieC's cart. See, The Mrs. had disappeared long ago with the full-size cart, and I only had the two Childrens and their carts. We searched all over that store for her, but did not find her. I even tried calling her cellphone, but she had left it home on the microwave in direct violation of the rules of shopping, where we must each have our cellphones handy for when we get saperated and The Childrens inevitably go ballistic.

I, however, am the only one who is required to follow that rule. Most of the rules are that way.

Well, shortly thereafter, while we are searching to and fro for The Mrs., an woman ambles by and says, "My. Isn't he a bit young for that?" while pointing to the beer. So I say, "Too young? It's a pilsner." To which she gives me one of those "are you joking or not?" smiles and wanders off.

Shortly thereafer, a couple of the guys that work there happen by. They go, "All right. Teaching him early. Way to go," and give the thumbs up.

Damn straight.