If your wife were to include "Dijon Mustard" on your grocery list, and that's EXACTLY what you came home with, should you be faulted for not having picked up a "Grey Poupon Dijon Mustard"? Well I was, because we had a Grey Poupon Dijon mustard in the fridge, and I'm supposed to maintain a mental inventory of all items in the fridge and pantry. I mention pantry because I almost failed to pick up the correct potatoes, which is a pantry item, but more on that later.
How about if she wrote "2-3 leaks"? How would you interpret that? Maybe she meant if the leaks are thin or small, pick up 3, otherwise 2 will do. Okay, but what size constitutes "thin or small"? The male mind will respond with, "just pick up 3 and err on the overstocking/wasteful side than have to deal with getting sent back to the store to finish the job and having your mental prowess called into question.
What led to this blog entry was when my wife said the following to me one day after a subpar performance of picking up the items she'd listed for me at Albertsons: "Brian, I wonder how you handle things at work when you have so many issues with a simple grocery list. I'm not gonna write a paragraph on every item. You should figure it out." So this is my attempt at making myself feel better about my ineptitude in following directions and filling in the blanks. Whether or not my points are valid is irrelevant. I'm guilty and will remain as such.
Let's examine how a typical male mind handles a shopping list written by a female. As always, if the number of items exceeds a threshold of say 4-5, then I'll have a pre-shopping meeting with my wife to decode some parts:
26 items in total, I was at the self service checkout counter. What a mistake that turned out to be. With items such as Cilantro, 2-3 leaks, white and yellow onions - these are items with no bar code - it would've been much quicker to have a cashier ring them out. Halfway through scanning these items, I read the following alert on the screen: "An unexpected item found in bagging area". When I removed what I thought may have caused the alert, I got this alert: "Item has been removed from bagging area. Please return item to bagging area". It took a couple of minutes to get the self service attendant to remove the alert so I could proceed. I had too many items on the bagging area, and I had to put them in my shopping cart. So the attendant showed me the proper way to do this: Remove a bag, wait for a few seconds to get prompted for permission on the screen, then put the item in the cart. If you do anything in between, you'll need an attendant's assistance. An attendant call is about half as bad as calling your wife; a shameful admission of inadequacy, but not one you'd have to live with 'til death do us part.
How about if she wrote "2-3 leaks"? How would you interpret that? Maybe she meant if the leaks are thin or small, pick up 3, otherwise 2 will do. Okay, but what size constitutes "thin or small"? The male mind will respond with, "just pick up 3 and err on the overstocking/wasteful side than have to deal with getting sent back to the store to finish the job and having your mental prowess called into question.
What led to this blog entry was when my wife said the following to me one day after a subpar performance of picking up the items she'd listed for me at Albertsons: "Brian, I wonder how you handle things at work when you have so many issues with a simple grocery list. I'm not gonna write a paragraph on every item. You should figure it out." So this is my attempt at making myself feel better about my ineptitude in following directions and filling in the blanks. Whether or not my points are valid is irrelevant. I'm guilty and will remain as such.
Let's examine how a typical male mind handles a shopping list written by a female. As always, if the number of items exceeds a threshold of say 4-5, then I'll have a pre-shopping meeting with my wife to decode some parts:
- 2-3 leaks: Should I pick up 2 leaks and break a 3rd one in half (2 + 3 = 5, 5 / 2 = 2.5)?
- 1 bag of potatoes (Russet): Russ what?! Is that a potato brand, or a kind of potato? No worries, I'll just search for the word. During my decode meeting with Helena, she instructed me to avoid a 10 lb. bag of potatoes. More like 5 lb. would do. At Albertsons, I found nothing but a buncha 10 lb. bags. Luckily, a produce employee was stocking items next to me, so I asked him if he could show me a 5 lb. bag of Russet potatoes. He pointed to the far end of the potato/onion cart. I searched another couple of minutes and managed to find the word "Russet" on a tag where the bag is sealed (not written on the bag itself).
- 1 bake it yourself baguette: The last time I asked for this, I was given a frozen baguette, and wifey said this was not a bake it yourself. This time around, when I asked for this item, the employee took me to where the baguettes are and gave me one called "Take and Bake". It turned out this is "a different one, but still okay". Still not sure what the correct "bake it yourself baguette" is, but who cares, if two Albertsons employees can't figure it out, then surely I'm exempt.
- Carne asada for 5: This time, I decided not to blurt out "carne asada for 5" to the butcher. Carne asada for 5 fat cows is different than for 4 adults, 2 of whom are lean Swedes, and a couple of kids. So I asked for 5 average size appetite adults. I may have bought more than we need, but oh well.
- 1 flour for baking: I cleared the flour size in the decode meeting (large), but I didn't realize there is "bleached" and "unbleached" version. I picked up "unbleached" 'cause I figured anything that is bleached can't be good for you. I got a pass on this one as Helena doesn't know which she prefers either.
- 2 whipping creams (not visible in the picture above): There is "heavy whipping cream" and "whipping cream". I can't explain why, but I picked up the heavy one (more manly?). I passed this test as well, as Helena doesn't know the difference, and either is fine.
- Land & Lakes spread with Olive or Canola oil: This is an evolved version of the description. "With Olive" is the preferred item, but during my previous trip no alternative was listed. I couldn't find one with olive oil, so I had to make the dreaded phone call to inquire whether "with Canola oil" would suffice. It did.
26 items in total, I was at the self service checkout counter. What a mistake that turned out to be. With items such as Cilantro, 2-3 leaks, white and yellow onions - these are items with no bar code - it would've been much quicker to have a cashier ring them out. Halfway through scanning these items, I read the following alert on the screen: "An unexpected item found in bagging area". When I removed what I thought may have caused the alert, I got this alert: "Item has been removed from bagging area. Please return item to bagging area". It took a couple of minutes to get the self service attendant to remove the alert so I could proceed. I had too many items on the bagging area, and I had to put them in my shopping cart. So the attendant showed me the proper way to do this: Remove a bag, wait for a few seconds to get prompted for permission on the screen, then put the item in the cart. If you do anything in between, you'll need an attendant's assistance. An attendant call is about half as bad as calling your wife; a shameful admission of inadequacy, but not one you'd have to live with 'til death do us part.
So my performance today was top notch. 26 items and no phone calls to the wife for clarification, and no complaints about any items. To get a perfect score, however, I would have to do all of this without the decode pre-shopping meeting. I'm getting there.... but at least I'm not retarded.
Hah! Love the commentary. Grocery shopping IS mad crazy if you don't do it often. People think of jargon as tech-related but there's so much in grocery shopping too. Great that you managed it well this time.
ReplyDeletePS How is frozen NOT "bake it yourself"! 0.o