Conundrum

[mamadeb]

How did non-cooking spouses grocery shop before the invention of cellphones? I sendt jonbaker with a detailed list, with options, and he still calls me.

Comments

[leela-cat.livejournal.com]

They came home with the bags of groceries and were sent back out with the list of things that they missed and things that they got wrong.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

Ah. Yes. I can see that.

I'm remembering once, many, many years ago, watching a young man, list in hand, perusing a display of silver polishes. He clearly could not find the product (brand name/type of polish) his wife wanted. He kept checking over and over again, hoping it would magically appear. I'm presuming wife because if it were his mother, he'd know what she normally used. And because he was clearly terrified.

And, since this was pre-cellphone, he had to make a choice - bring home the wrong the product (but which wrong product?) or come home with nothing. My husband said he'd probably come home with nothing because that's better than bringing home the wrong thing.

With the cellphone - jonbaker is bringing home red beans, not white, and whole tomatoes, not diced *but* he knows I'm good with that.

[linda3m.livejournal.com]

The real reason the Israelites wandered in the dessert for 40 years was because the men could find half the stuff on the list.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

I thought it was because Moses, being a man, refused to stop and ask for directions?

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

Heee! Yeah, I can see that.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Generally, we brought back the Wrong Stuff a lot.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

Oh, you poor things.

[madripoor-rose.livejournal.com]

Not spouses, but with Dad there's always multiple trips to the grocery store. Now that I'm trying new recipes a lot for his/our new low cholesterol diet, it's easier to go myself or go with him. He either forgets to take the list with him, or leaves it in the car. And then buys his best guess at what was on the list from a glance at it.

His other fun trick is a lack of depth perception. He'll have the list, look at the correct product on the shelf in front of him, and grab something entirely different one space over without noticing. "Dad, why do we have cocktail onions and vegetarian lasanga? Where's my olives and regualar Stouffer's lasagna?" ....and back to the store we go.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

Jonathan also has depth perception problems, but he's been dealing with that his entire life, so it doesn't come up in grocery shopping.

[akite.livejournal.com]

I have depth perception problems! I'll reach for something, and when I get home it's not what I intended to buy at all. /o\ Usually, it's whatever was next to what I wanted.

[tod-hollykim.livejournal.com]

LOL! Yeah, I worked in a grocery store down on LBI for 15 years. You don't believe how often some guys would come through on any given day.

And then there were the well trained ones. Yeah, they can be taught.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

So, cellphones actually save on gas, too. :)

If there is driving involved. It wasn't here, but no one wanted to go out again in the ick.

[cellio]

I'm not sure. In the case of my parents, my mother ended up doing most of the shopping (or I did, when I was old enough), and when she sent my father out for something she trained him to not lose the receipt in case he had to go back.

Once while shopping I stopped to get eggs. As is my habit, I opened the carton to inspect the contents. An older fellow, list in hand, stood next to me and did the same. I found that one of my eggs was cracked so I put the carton down and picked up another to try again, at which point he turned to me and asked "what are we looking for?". Shopping by imitation! :-) (After I taught him to look at eggs I looked in his cart and asked if he'd checked the expiration dates on the milk and sour cream. No, he didn't know they had dates.)

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

See, that's sad. jonbaker knows all of that stuff - I've seen him do it. Any adult should know that much.

[jonbaker.livejournal.com]

He could be getting forgetful. Sounds like the sort of thing my father might do these days, even though he knew all about things like checking eggs and choosing fruit.

[bercilakslady.livejournal.com]

Back when my Mom was living with a slightly older friend of hers, she was sent back to the store to get the right brand of mayo. To this day that brand is all she buys.

I find this rather amusing.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

There is only one brand of mayo.

[sollersuk.livejournal.com]

Speaking from memory: detailed shopping lists, followed (often) by major rows ("But you didn't say..." followed by "But wasn't it obvious that X wasn't a suitable substitute for Y?")

This was often seen as a move by the non-cooking spouse to make sure that they were never, ever asked to do the shopping again.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

Ah. These days, non-cooking spouse would forget hir cellphone...

[chaos-wrangler.livejournal.com]

G & I tend to use the list route and split the shopping by weight and location of store, so he'll get heavy local things like milk & juice and I'll get the specialty items in the neighborhood where I learn once a week. I also ask him to leave out empty containers of stuff that he eats but I don't so I can write down brand/size/other details that I wouldn't know/remember when looking at what's available in the store.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

That makes perfect sense.

What we do is I do the major shopping - local stores all deliver so it makes sense to get the heavy stuff all at once. Also, as I do all the cooking, I need to know what we have and don't have.

Jonathan buys extras - milk, snack foods, seasonal fruit that catches his eye. Also, he has shiur on Sunday, so it's easy for him to stop off at the supermarket and bring extra groceries home.

[akite.livejournal.com]

I'm a cellphone Ludite, but I just don't send my husband shopping. He's good to pick up a quart of milk or a dozen eggs, I've taught him to look at the expiration dates, but anything more complicated, forget it.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

Poor you.

Of course, his plot worked perfectly...:)

[the-star-fish.livejournal.com]

Seth once walked the four blocks to the grocery store specifically to buy [thing]. He came home with more canned vegetables than he could easily carry ("They were on sale!) and then had to go back when he realized he'd forgotten [thing].

(This was before I lived here, but it's typical. He doesn't make lists and has a bad memory. Mostly I do the shopping. *g*)

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

I give Jonathan detailed lists, knowing what things he's questioned me about in the past, but I can't account for all eventualities. He's more than competent to shop for things he wants or general staples, but he doesn't want to have to go out again because I've been too specific. It's a fine line, really.

Also, like all good Jewish husbands, he's slightly afraid of me. :)

[jonbaker.livejournal.com]

As may be, but you're also really cute. And nice.