North Star Writers Group

One of the disappointing things about being a husband who is semi-retired is that suddenly you are available to do household-type chores you didn’t have to do when you were working full-time.

One of those chores is grocery shopping.

My wife, Sally, sent me out to the grocery store to do a week’s worth of shopping the other day. Plenty of times during our 44 years of marriage I’ve gone grocery shopping with her, but on those excursions she always did the actual buying and I simply rode shotgun, so to speak. Then, suddenly, I was in charge.

When I arrived at the store, I grabbed a shopping cart, the same cart I always grab – the one with a broken front wheel – and set off on my adventure.

That’s when I suddenly realized that women, unlike men, have a strategy when it comes to shopping for groceries. They have a strategy because they tend to know exactly where every single item is located in the store, so they make out their shopping lists so they will be able to purchase the maximum number of edibles and other items in the minimum amount of time.

I had a list, too, but it made no sense to me, so I just set off on my adventure.

There I was, careening up and down the aisles with the cart with a wobbly wheel fighting me on every turn and straightaway. That’s when it dawned on me that a typical grocery store is a rather confusing place. For openers, instead of just one or maybe two brands of pickles, there are like 4,000 brands of pickles. The same is true with laundry detergents, toothpaste, paper towels, doughnuts, boxed mashed potatoes, soda pop and breakfast cereals.

There is also no rhyme or reason to the layout of a grocery store. You’d think that for accessibility purposes, items would be grouped according to the alphabet - you know, “A” is for applesauce and artichokes, “B” for bananas and baked beans.

But, no, that isn’t how it works at most stores.

Sally can buy $100 worth of groceries in about 30 minutes. It took me the greater part of two hours to accomplish the same thing. I’ve had shorter vacations than that shopping trip.

Finally, after what seemed like a lifetime, I was down to my last item.

Then, much to my chagrin, I discovered Sally had abbreviated the name of that item. The abbreviation was “CSP.”

After wracking my brain for several minutes in an attempt to translate the letters, I went looking for a store employee who might be able to help me.

I found one in a potato chip aisle.

“Excuse me,” I said, “could you tell me what this means?”

I held out the note for him to see.

“That’s catsup,” he said, “and you’ll find it on Aisle 6.”

I thanked him and was starting to walk away when I turned back to him.

“How did you know it was catsup?” I asked.

He smiled and replied, “Hey, pal, I’m married, too.”

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This is Column # BB068. Request permission to publish here.