Men & Grocery Shopping

In all our 41 years of marriage my husband has gone grocery shopping with me twice until he retired. This is because I banned him from the stores. He picked up expensive cheeses and other items and then freaked out because the bill was so high; somehow he could not fathom that the rest of the family needed to eat too.

He has been retired for almost a year now and one of his “fun” things is to drive to the next town where the only Safeway store in the county is located. He cannot buy one of something, but buys at least six so he goes alone because I am not a shop-together kind of a person. Being a man’s man, he loves steaks, but only rib bone-in and (he says) Safeway has the best, so whenever they are on sale off he goes to buy a half dozen family packs for me to freeze in single-steak packages (he is the only one that eats them).

The only other store he is allowed to go to is the Dollar Store where he buys reading glasses. He comes home with a half dozen pair in all colors and sizes. He used to buy other things in the dollar store like pickled cauliflower, but being that he did not have his glasses on he would get six jars of unknown pickle types thinking he made a big score in the pickled cauliflower isle. I have shelves of pickles that no one will touch. The new rule is “Do not buy anything without your glasses.”

Another week, another sale and back to Safeway he goes. He is always so pleased when he comes home and goes on and on how friendly everyone is to him. Finally, Mr. Hermit is coming out of his shell, maybe we will actually go out to dinner sometime soon (it has been four years). Since we both forgot our anniversary this year, we have another 364 days to wait for date-night.

After Safeway and the Dollar Store, can you imagine what would happen if he went into a hardware store? Six hammers, I don’t think so. This is why I am the one that does all the rest of the shopping, even at the hardware store.

Of course it is not just the stores, it is garage sales and “side of the road bargains” that are a pox to his wallet. For awhile he was coming home with broken riding lawnmowers. At one point we had six, but my son took one home, two are for parts and the other three we mow lawn with or just use them for transportation around the yard (easier than walking). His latest acquisition, 6 top-hats with monopoly pieces glued to them. Maybe I should give up and let him buy the fancy cheese.