Your wife told you to buy what?
Walking down grocery store aisle No. 2, looking wide-eyed at items on the shelves like a Soviet-era steel worker visiting the West for the first time, I realized I was out of my league.
What? There are two kinds of chips? Corn and potato?
Yeah, way out.
My wife had sent me to the grocery store. Of course I was sent there. A lot of guys won't willingly go to a grocery store unless they're broke and dinner plans revolve around free samples, or it's 3 a.m. and we really, really need taquitos. Don't laugh. It happens.
I once lived in a world where guys never went to the grocery store. We survived on Big Macs, Slim Jims and Twinkies. Sure, we have health problems now, but that's the American way. Heck, we can buy beer a lot more easily than we can buy antibiotics. That says something about this country.
I shook off my awe of the wall o' ketchup _ it comes in squeeze bottles now _ and pushed my thumpy-wheeled cart toward aisle 12. I had to go to aisle 12; I had a list.
Item one: Popcorn.
Fine. Popcorn fits into a guy's culinary concept of the universe. Take a handful of seeds, drop them into a pan of painfully hot oil, and shake the pan while the seeds explode. Then, cover everything with salt and destroy the evidence. Cool.
Item two: Almond bark.
Sure, I could buy almond bark. I didn't know what almond bark was, but that didn't mean the store wouldn't sell it to me. Almonds are tasty, and bark is a tree's skin. Kinda sounds like pork rinds. If I couldn't find almond bark, pork rinds would probably do in a pinch.
I found almond bark on aisle eight. Two types of almond bark.
Two? What was I going to do? This was like NASA telling the Apollo astronauts to bring back "whatever." Did she expect me to automatically know which type of almond bark she wanted? Or was she just being mean?
A woman, probably in her mid-50s, pulled her cart near mine and grabbed a package of brown sugar off the shelf. She was a mom, and, quite possibly, a grandma, so she knew everything.
"Hi," I said to her, clutching my list. "If you'd sent your husband to the grocery story for almond bark, what would you expect him to come home with?"
She smiled.
"This," she said, handing me a package.
Smiling, I thanked her and left. Everything was OK ... this time. But ladies, guys understand on-base percentage, we appreciate good arc welding, and we smile knowingly at the words, "go ahead, make my day." But please, don't expect us to understand everyday life. We're not ready for it.
