Hitting the market with the hubby

At the risk of sounding like a 1950s aproned house frau, I'm on the verge of banning the hubby from all retail establishments, including the supermarket, but excluding the liquor store. (However, this, too, maybe off limits if he keeps on fetching bargain bin wines, one step above Boone's Farm.)  I think most older men should be banned, too, and I don't think I'm alone judging by the "Oh, sister, I know what you mean," looks from my fellow shoppers as they push their carts up and down the grocery store aisles, their husbands on a grocery market lam.

The eye rolls say it all.

It's funny how such a measured gesture perfectly captures the universal "holy shopping carts on fire, I should have left him at home" kind of feeling.


Like most "older" men, he simply disappears in the grocery store. He wants his own cart, and then takes off like a toddler in a playground. I lose him in the dairy section, between the blocks of Cabot's cheese and free range eggs, and he surfaces again in meats, balancing half a steer on his shoulder.


"This should do us for a bit." he says.

I used to go shopping alone, but over the past few years, my husband's been riding shotgun, his idea of spending quality time together since the kids are now orbiting in their own hormone filled black holes. He refuses to go the mall and I'm delighted since within minutes of his arrival, he's shuffling past stores, arching his back, with a pinched  look on his face.

"These floors kill my back," he puffs. I don't know what it is."

I do-he hates malls.

But he doesn't mind grocery stores.

What used to take me 30 minutes for a big shop-up has gradually turned into a two hour hide and seek game.

"I'll grab a trolley," he says (that's Brit-speak for shopping cart.)

"Umm...no, that's okay. I think we're fine with one." I say, patting the handle, wondering if they make man-sized harnesses so I could tether him to my cart.

I eye the kid sized plastic trucks attached to carts, (those monstrous juggernauts that take out endcaps because they're impossible to turn), and wonder if I could convince him to awaken his inner boy and take a spin.

"Oh, yes you can fit in there, darling, I'll give you a push."

But, as I'm rifling through my handbag looking for my shopping list that no doubt is back home on the counter top, along with either my debit and Amex card (yes, I'm one of those infuriating shoppers holding up lines all across Massachusetts because I can't find my cards, dumping empty wrappers, receipts, packs of gum, lipstick, and unwrapped tampons on the counter), he's seamlessly blended into the masses of bodies pushing their carts down the aisles, his bald patch dimming like a fading beacon.

I dial him up.

 "Um, where are you?"

"I'm just pottering about," he says.

What my husband dreams our cart looked like

And that's what I'm worried about. Pottering means either he's just grabbing whatever is within his reach-a hog, cookies, candy, or the thinnest half ply toilet paper that is as effective as using a feather after a jalapeno bender.


He'll eventually meet me carrying his haul, each item balanced on top of each another, like a stack of presents, and dump them into the cart with a smile as wide as the case of canned tomatoes that now flattens the still warm French bread.

"I think we still have a case of those tomatoes from the last time we came," I'll say. And before I can bend over and hoist them out of the basket, he's off again, wandering down the aisle, pecking on his iPhone, searching for sweets.

It used to be much worse before we all got hooked up with cell phones. I'd end up going up and down each aisle, muttering under my breath, wondering how on earth I could lose him in our small market. But, by God, it was as though he had an invisibility cloak, and no matter how many times I rounded corners in that cart, and peered down those damn aisles, he was never there.

But after years of him going missing, even with the advances in technology,  I've devised a sneaky little game that keeps tabs on him, and I think, quite frankly, he likes it.

I'll pick an obscure item, one that will have him scanning the international food aisle for a good ten minutes, before he realizes it's on the other side of the store.

"What are peppadews? he asks.

What our cart looks like.....

"Oh, I'm really testing you now. I had to take it up a notch." 

"Hmmm...international food aisle, canned goods aisle, produce...give me a hint?"

And so, he wanders off to the international aisle, which unfortunately for him, has grown from being as exotic as custard from Canada to now Korean kimchi, and a thousand other canned foods, from pickled cactus to questionable animal parts. He scans each country's section, reading each label, from top shelf to bottom, traveling through South America, the Caribbean, and over to Asia-all without a passport-before he moves on.


"Oh, that was a tough one," he says, holding up the jar of peppadews like a trophy.
 "They were in the produce department. You almost got me."

These hunts give me just enough time to go full throttle down the aisles, bypassing all the crap that usually get tossed in by hubby. And they somehow fulfill his long dormant drive to hunt and provide a wholly mammoth for his clan.

We'll hook up at the register and off we'll head, snacking on the fresh un-flattened French bread on our ride home.