Black, green, purple Friday, you can keep it…

I get the whole “I’m going to go shopping” on the busiest shopping day of the year. For some it’s a curiosity, for others it’s a people watching event, for women it’s primal. What I don’t get is the camping out on the sidewalk hoping to save __% on whatever. There is no “item” that could make me take my time, my comfort and my hygiene to sit in front of some retail store for any length of time. Someone said to me, “Even if your child had an extra special gift that they asked for and you could only get it that way?” Yes…even then. The first problem with that argument is that there is always that extra special something for kids and it is a moving target. Let’s pretend this special thing was, say a….brick. You would always be watching the brick wondering if they are using it. You would ask them about the brick and obsess that they properly understood the type of sacrifice it took to obtain the brick and then they would release the Brick V2 and you would be all sorts of mad. The second argument is that I don’t want to raise a child that thinks this is a good idea either. Next thing you know a grandkid comes along and now you have two generations of idiots in front of the Best Buy and the species takes another downturn. Keep your Friday, I’ll be out there on December 24th with my own set of problems.

Shuffle off to Buffalo

Yesterday I noticed something as I trudged through the local Home Goods store. I was doing the “husband shuffle”. I only really noticed I was doing it when I observed another poor soul engaged in it himself. Husbands, you know how it goes. You have absolutely zero interest in being in a store and yet there you are. Your feet start to simply slide along the linoleum like you are about 90 years old. Your hearing starts to suffer since there is absolutely no items to have a real conversation about. If you don’t notice those things here is the one thing you will understand. You know exactly where the exit door to this place is and every time you start to get close to it your symptoms start to fade. There are times in these stores when you get soooo close to the exit only to be thwarted by the “cute little salt and pepper shakers”. I am not posting this because I have an answer to it, but simply as a reminder that we are in a common struggle. Maybe some of my female readers will read this and take pity on one guy and it will all be worth it. Ladies…here is a list of stores that no husband should ever be made to shuffle through.

- Duh..Home Goods

- Michaels Fabric / Craft store

- Payless shoes or any shoe store for that matter

- Sephora

- Claires / Icing / Any accessory store

Good rule of thumb? If there are chairs in the store for the sole reason of allowing a stricken husband to sit while his significant other shops? This is not store he should be in.

Bag lady

I'm not usually the one who goes to the market here for groceries, so I feel a bit out of sorts when I do go. Do I get the skinke? or the svinekjott? How many litres of milk do I have to get to equal a gallon? What the heck is that hanging in the butcher area? I manage to make it to the checkout counter where I prepared for most of the usual questions. Do I want a bag? Do I want my receipt? What I wasn't prepared for was that I needed an extra bag. It wasn't the "asking" that I wasn't prepared for, but the fact that you had to pay for the bags. I'm not sure how I managed to go to the market a number of times and miss the fact that we paid for the little bags. Well...I grabbed my extra bag and proceeded to bag my groceries when I was hit with a flurry of Norwegian, accompanied by a look of disgust. Jen quickly told me that the checkout clerk was asking me to pay for the bag. To tell you how expensive these bags are, the guy behind me waved me off and paid for the bag along with his candy bar and bottle of Coke. Once we were outside Jen also told me the clerk spoke perfect English, but she just didn't want to that day and must have decided to pick on me. That's it....less than two weeks left here and I'm not going back to the bag lady's market. It's too traumatizing.