Marital Advice to my Grandson Joel

Marital Advice 101.4 
Settling Into Married Life - (Continued)

Mommy's Little Helper 101.4b

When you were a child, remember when your mother would occasionally give you little tasks to do, such as "Please go in the living room and bring me the red pillow from the couch," or "Get me a tissue from the box on my dresser," or "Hold this bowl for me until I need it."  Maybe you were even rewarded for your help by being allowed to lick the batter from the mixing bowl beaters.

Your Wife's Helper

Well, you're a big boy now and your wife is going to occasionally call upon you to run some simple errands for her.  For instance, say you're in the grocery store and Abby gives you an order:  "Go get the smallest box of oatmeal they've got.  It's in the cereal aisle."

You charge off and locate the cereal aisle in less than ten seconds.  The oatmeal is in the first section on your left. You're making good time.  And then you see it - a stash of oatmeal boxes and canisters taking up an area seven feet high and ten feet wide.  Seventy square feet of oatmeal.

There is strawberry oatmeal, blueberry oatmeal, maple oatmeal, cinnamon oatmeal, raspberry oatmeal, original oatmeal, brown sugar oatmeal, one-minute oatmeal, and a whole lot more.  There are square, rectangular, and round containers ranging from a few ounces to several pounds.

You remember your instructions: "Get the smallest box of oatmeal they've got."  You look them over and there it is - the smallest box of oatmeal on the shelf and you grab it.

You rush back to where you left Abby in the frozen food section and, of course, she is gone.  After searching the entire store and having come to the conclusion that she has been kidnapped, you finally find her - she has doubled back and is in the canned soup aisle.  You proudly hand her the box of oatmeal that you have so carefully selected.

Abby scrutinizes the box, gives you a bewildered look and says, "I can't use raspberry oatmeal in my meatloaf recipe."  And she charges off toward the oatmeal section at high speed.  No licking the batter from the beaters for you today.

Fool Me Once, Shame On You - Fool Me Twice, Shame On Me

You are now expecting sage advice on how you should have handled this situation, and you shall get it.

First Strategy - In the future, try to never again go grocery shopping with your wife.

Second Strategy - If the first strategy doesn't work, try to stay as far away from your wife and the grocery cart as you can so you  cannot be sent on impossible missions like hunting for oatmeal.

Third Strategy - If the first two strategies don't work, ask for specifics of exactly what size, color, and shape the box is, what the brand name is, if there are any special requirements, such as Original, Instant, Powdered, or . . . .

About the time you get this far with trying to get an exact description of what you are to go fetch, your wife will be so disgusted with you and so impatient that she'll roar off to go get it herself.

She'll get over it, and you weren't going to get the beaters to lick anyway.

Mommy's Helper - The Truth 

When you were a kid, you probably screwed up every task that your mother gave you to do, too, but she was too kind to tell you what a f**k-up you were because, even though you didn't realize it, you were in the early stages of your lifetime of training to be a husband.

Copyright  ©  2017 By Peter Davidson