Friendly Advice

Got a fantastic email from a dearly loved college friend today with advice for living with boys. She wrote...

Here is a story of the life you have to look forward to when you start living with your boy: Yesterday A called me on his way home from work to ask if I needed anything from the grocery store. (Aw!) I asked him to please bring home some stuff to make a salad to go with dinner. He brought home spinach and three kinds of cookies. Oh.

I love it! I love everything about that story. A) How sweet is A? (And believe me, he's a sweetie.) B) How delightfully, wonderfully perfect is that story? I can see how it went down.

A's inner monologue: Stuff for salad. That's in the produce department. Hmm.. Spinach is good for you, I'll get that. What else goes on salads. Croutons. Croutons go on salads. Where would croutons be, and why aren't they right here next to the lettuce? Croutons are baked, so they're probably with the crackers. Let's see... crackers, crackers, crackers... COOKIES! Cookies, I love cookies. I'll grab a box of these, oh and these are M's favorites, so I'll get those, too. What? Those are on sale? Gotta get a box of them.

Hence a shopping basket that has one bag of spinach and three boxes of cookies.

One of my favorite hobbies is checking out other people's carts at the checkout line. You can tell third-date guy (pasta sauce, noodles, biiiiiig bottle of vino), and post-breakup girl (ice cream, Cosmo, marshmallow fluff), but it's the odd men (and women) out that make the game fun. Tortellini, Snickers Ice Cream bars, and toilet cleaner? Ricotta cheese, egg beaters, and Kool-Aid? Slim-fast, hot sausage, and cookie dough? (All things cylindrical, in the last case).

Seriously, get yourselves to the 10 items or less lane and check out the inventory in the baskets ahead of you. You can always tell who's sorry (flowers, chocolate) and who's sorrier (whipped cream, chocolate sauce). If type-purchasing were an Olympic sport, I could give Phelps a run for his money.