Say what?

My wife and I are generally on the same page when it comes to matters of religion, money, and (not insignificantly) whether the free end of a toilet paper roll goes under or over. We do have some differences in the way we communicate, however.

When she casually mentions that she means to do a load of laundry today, my natural response is to acknowledge this intelligence with something along the lines of, "Okay." It's only after she repeats her laundry-doing intention that I may take an additional moment to consider the possibility of subtext in her announcement.

"Are you trying to tell me to take the hamper out to the laundry room?" I might ask.

"Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying," she'll say, hypothetically, and then heave a deep, exasperated sigh.

Then, if intent on pushing my luck, I might observe, possibly even observe aloud, "Wouldn't it be better to just say, 'Please take the hamper out to the laundry room'?"

Hypothetically.

Oh, the wondrous things we'll see, when we go to the grocery

It's still absurdly hot, here in the Lone Star State, so when Sweetie started muttering about her grocery list, this morning, I threw myself on the grenade and volunteered to go. No sense both of us getting all sweated up, and there wasn't a lot of produce on the list so how bad could it be?

So I hied myself over to yon neighborhood Kroger, parked way the hell out where only the wild shopping carts roam, and snagged a tame one from a corral, dodging minivans on my way to the front door. There, I applied all my ninja skills to fend off assaults from various child sports organizations, all trying to sell me the same “value card” that my wife had already purchased from some neighborhood kid the day before.

Inside, things went pretty smoothly. I ducked and weaved, tossing things from the list into my cart, per my wife's carefully-organized list. And then… the pasta aisle, where a tidy 40-ish mother smiled and chatted with four kids of varying ages spread out across the entire aisle. As I approached, hoping to squeeze past the pack to the spaghetti noodles, Mom tried to get all the kids moved to one side. I smiled at her and moved my cart to the other side – at which point the teenaged boy pushing the cart moved it to block my way. His (approximately) six-year-old brother with Down Syndrome put his hands on his hips and, with an exaggerated roll of his eyes, said, “Geez. The other side, dork.”

I just about lost it.

So I shifted back to the other side and slipped past. Mom said, nodding toward the teenager, “I don't know what his problem is. He has his driver's license.” I muttered something along the lines of, “Now that's scary.”

When I was ready to check out, I spotted a line where a very elderly lady was just wrapping it up. I unloaded my stuff and waited while the poor woman tried every way to swipe her credit card except the right one. Poor dear, all hunched over with osteoporosis. She finally got it sorted out and, as she shuffled away behind the bag boy pushing her carts, I thought, I should be so lucky as to be able to do my own shopping if I get to be her age.

I finished my own transaction and was pushing my cart across the parking lot when I spotted a shiny orange Corvette headed down the row toward me. As it passed, I noticed that the driver was the elderly woman from the checkout. She had her gangster lean on and one wrist draped across the top of the steering wheel!

I wonder… would a snazzy sports car help my back and neck problems? Maybe I can get my doctor to write me a prescription for Cooper Mini, or something.