My wife Susan and I like to grocery shop together. Is that weird?
“My head is throbbing.”
“Yeah, mine too, want a Tylenol?”
This is a typical Sunday, meaning we tried to cram too much in. To wit: my alarm rang at 4:50. I popped out of bed, brewed a pot of coffee on the stovetop, and watched the U.S. National Women’s Team play Sweden in the World Cup. After the game, jacked up from watching a bunch of twenty and thirty-year-olds run nonstop for two hours, I took a run of my own. After lunch, I cut the lawn and then poked around in my yard, spraying beehives and poison ivy with chemicals. I cleaned up Saturday’s mulching mess. Susan had a similar day, minus the soccer. We’re both completely dehydrated.
“Hey Susan, you want to go lie down?” She’s been sick; we both have, but I was first, so I had three extra days of healing time. Today is Susan’s first day as a (mostly) well-person. I’m fine, but I still sound sick. Like always, my cold settled in my lungs. At random intervals throughout the day, I let loose a guttural cough. Foul-tasting phlegm churns and tries to escape my esophagus. When I cough this cough, the word Coricidin pops into my mind. As a child, this is the drug my mother gave me for influenza. A Pavlovian response: I cough, I hear my mom say Coricidin. Plus, the cadence of the word sounds like the raspy crackle just below my larynx. Coricidin.
“No, I want to go shopping with you. It’s more fun when we both go.” She’s right. Grocery shopping seems to be a solitary task. People trudge the aisles like zombies, mechanically grabbing items and dropping them into their cart. No one has a good time. Especially those people leaning on their cart like a walker as they plod down the center of the aisle oblivious to the crowd bunching up behind them.
In contrast, Susan and I pop around the store. We discuss the produce, compare pasta, complain about meat prices and remind each other we left ice cream off our list. We tell old stories from previous visits. Like the time when the worker scolded me because I couldn’t see the box of muffins I wanted on the shelf right in front of me.
“Do you need to get yourself a lime?”
“Yes, I do.” I say this while stifling a smile. She looks in the cart, a lemon and lime sit atop a bed of bagged apples. See? Fun! On those occasion when I shop alone, I’m not such a zombie. The secret, hidden benefit of wearing hearing aids is I’ve always got Bluetooth headphones in my ears. I walk the aisles with music pounding loud enough to drown out the music the store is already playing.
Because I live in a small town, I invariably run into someone I know. They make eye contact, their lips moving. I have no idea what they are saying. I hold up a finger, a universal sign for hang on a sec, and I fumble around trying to dig my phone from my pocket and hit the pause button. Then I always say something stupid like “Sorry, I had The White Stripes blasting in my head.”
Leaving the store, we comment on another successful shopping date. I guess calling it a date is a joke, but there’s an element of truth as well. We’re out of the house, we’re interacting, we have a good time. Why not a date? As an old(er) married couple, empty nesters to some degree, we’ve doubled down on our commitment to do a better job communicating with each other. With others, I tend to sit in silence, panicked because I can never think of anything to say. I need to make the whole of my life more like our grocery adventures. In the baking aisle, I’m never at a loss for words.
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On Sunday, I told Susan I was itching to sit down and write, but I couldn’t think of a topic. Since we were driving to the store, she suggested I write about grocery shopping. Challenge accepted. I hope I haven’t wasted your time.
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Previously Published on jefftcann.com and is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
