The Grocery List....

Husbands are a strange breed of critter. They hear only what they want to and act upon about half of that amount. Sending them to the store without a written list is asking for enough trouble to cause a major marital fight. On the scale of one to ten ... with one being a minor disagreement and ten being a capitol crime ... sending the husband to the store without a list flies in at fifteen.

It never fails. He’s going to fill up his pick-up truck with gas and asks if there’s anything she needs from town while he’s out and about. She’s worked all day. Her feet are aching. There’s laundry hip deep to the Jolly Green Giant, ironing to do, and supper to cook. Not to mention she brought home a brief case full of papers to go over before she goes to bed.

How sweet of that dear man to offer to pick up what she needs at the grocery store. And her mama said when it came to brains he got the short end of the stick. She’d have to call Mama that night and tell her just how wrong she’d been.

Yes, she did need toilet paper, laundry soap, plain potato chips, ice cream and spaghetti sauce. Just when he’s walking out the door she happens to remember that she’s totally out of spaghetti noodles, too and adds that to the list. But it is not written down on anything. Not on the back of a check. Not on one of those little fancy list things with a magnet to stick it to the refrigerator door. She’s just trusting him to remember those five ... no, six ... things.

He filled up his gas tank first and a couple of his fishing buddies happened to be at the same gas station. They told him that the sand bass are running and it would be a good weekend for them all to get together for a fishing trip. Then he went inside to pay for the gasoline and the man behind the counter, who’s a fellow football player from high school days, asked him if he’s going to the home game the next Friday night.

When he got to the store he remembered there were five things ... no, six ... because she added one just as he was walking out the door. Spaghetti noodles, that’s what it was. He turned the cart down that aisle and remembered the spaghetti sauce because it was right there beside the noodles. He gave himself a big pat on the back and went up and down the aisles looking at all the products, trying to remember what he was supposed to buy, and thinking about fishing or football.

Ice cream. That was it. He bought three half gallons. His favorite. Her favorite. And one that sounded good. Potato chips! Wow, was he good or what?

Hmmmnnn. Bananas, that had to be the next thing. Gosh, and there they were three pounds for a dollar. He bought thirty pounds. She was going to be so proud of him for remembering and with ten dollars worth of bananas in the house she wouldn’t have to buy any for at least three months.

Bread? Milk? Yep, it was bread. Must be bread because he just opened a new gallon of milk after he’d gotten home from work. Sixteen loaves of white bread and eight of wheat. That should last a couple of months. They could store it under the bed if there wasn’t enough room in the pantry.

He totes it all in and piles it on the table. Turns on Monday Night Football and calls up his fishing buddies to tell them he’ll go fishing with them on Saturday morning. She comes out of the laundry room where she’s been sorting clothes. No toilet paper or laundry soap.

Murphy’s Law for all wives: If you ask your husband to pick up five things from the grocery store and add one more as an afterthought, he will forget two of the first items.

And that is when Wife packs her bags and calls the divorce lawyer. Or else when she packs Husband’s bags and paints the lawyer’s phone number on his forehead in indelible magic marker.