Shopping cart chats

I am the sort of person people like to talk to in the grocery store. By people I mean strangers. They ask me which apples are good for baking. They ask me where to find yams. They ask me what yams are. They tell me about growing up on a farm, chasing chickens around the yard with a hatchet.

Yes. Just last week, a man cornered me in the meat section and joked about how he was glad the chicken was marked "no steroids," because otherwise, how would we know they weren't fed steroids? With all the drug scandals in sports these days, he was glad to know that our American chickens are not artificially pumped up. This led to an extremely long and graphic story about watching his father chase chickens around their yard when he was young. The man thought this was extremely funny. By the time he was finally finished with his story, I was no longer able to look at the meat. I took desperate aim for the cereal aisle, which contained no products for which animals were chased mercilessly around a yard. I'm sure if I stopped to think about these things long enough, I would be a vegetarian. That is why I try very hard NOT to think about these things.

Also recently, a woman came toward me in the cleaning supplies aisle and wanted to know, one woman to another, if it ever got easier to have your in-laws visit. "They're coming this weekend for the first time, and I'm a nervous wreck! My house will never be clean enough! And on top of it, we have workmen who are making a huge mess! And on top of that, I'm obsessive-compulsive!"

I tried to console her by saying she could always blame any lingering mess on the workmen, but she turned on me. "Oh, no! My mother-in-law will just blame me, say I'm not good enough for her son!" She went on to say that her husband had assured her the house looked fine, but if it would make her feel better, she could go out and buy all new cleaning products. Judging from her cart, she had taken him at his word.

She left as abruptly as she'd come, and I was thankful I didn't have her mother-in-law. If I'd told her how nice my mother-in-law is, it probably would have upset her enough to buy another mop.

Another time, a young man approached and asked, in somewhat broken English, where he could find "yam." I asked whether he wanted fresh or canned. He hesitated, then stated that he wanted fresh. I explained that they were in the produce aisle, but I got a blank look. "By the potatoes," I said, gesturing toward that end of the store.

He thanked me profusely and started off in that direction. Then he stopped and came back a few steps. "How about I want canned?" he said.

I directed him to where I thought the canned yams might reside. Whoever sent you to the store is probably going to regret it, I thought.

I fantasize sometimes about bringing all these people together, say in the produce aisle, and see who out-talks or out-questions the others. I'd bet the yams would start flying.

Please beat your head against a wall

We apologize for today's late, short entry. The Princess is wiped out by a day of visits to the doctor and the grocery store, the latter of which may have been the most traumatic. The incident in the meat section, in fact, just may induce her to vegetarianism. But more on that another day.

I don't even remember what Web site I was trying to get to, but instead of what I was looking for, I got this message:

There was a server error.
Okay. That happens.

If you reload this page, it will most likely go away.
Is that a promise?

So please refresh this page now by clicking the reload button on your Web browser.
Didn't you just say that would make the page go away?

If you get this page a second time, please try reloading the page again.
Huh?

If you keep getting this page, please wait an hour and try again.
And ask yourself why you are doing the same stupid thing over and over again.

If it comes back then, please e-mail ____________________.
Why? Isn't that supposed to be the result I WANT?

Thank you for your patience and understanding.
Arrrgggggggghhhhhh!

What's taking so long?

A friend recently asked what had been the hardest adjustment for me when I got married. I had to really think, and it made me wonder what Joe thought his hardest adjustment was. So I did a dumb thing. I asked him.

See, this is one of those myriad differences between men and women. Men don't think of these issues, let alone ask their wives about them. But we women just have to know everything. We think, mistakenly, that it will make us happier, more connected to our spouses, if we know what they are really thinking deep down inside. Most of the time, we find out that they are thinking, "How can I get out of this conversation?"

But he surprised me by answering my query without hesitation. "I could do things a lot faster before we were married."

"What?" I said. Of course, I'd been hoping that he would say there hadn't been any adjustments.

"Like going to bed!" he said. "When I'm tired, I just go to bed. But you have, like, 40 million things you have to do first, and it takes you two hours." He faked snoring to emphasize how this process affected him.

"Oh, please," I said. "It doesn't take me that long."

"Or like, whenever I would go somewhere, before, I could just go. But now we have to load up the cooler with water and snacks, you have to change what you're wearing, empty your purse and fill it back up again, take something out of the dryer, close all the curtains...it takes forever!"

"But that gives you time to practice your guitar!" I said brightly, trying to shift the spotlight off myself.

"And I can't just eat dinner over the sink and pray standing up. I have to sit down to pray and eat, and have long conversations! Dinner takes like, what, three hours?"

The list went on, but I could think of only one thing: How do I get out of this conversation?

Swapping house parts

There are some things you just take for granted. For instance, when I open our front door, I always assume that our steps will be there, as they have been for 167 years, granting passage in and out of the house to the street.

But one day I opened the door to check the temperature and noticed that our steps are starting to separate from the house. Oh, they're still there, but it can't be long before they decide to venture out on their own. "Enough's enough!" I imagine them saying. "These people can jolly well use a ladder, or jump, or never come out of the house at all for all we care. We're tired of being attached to one place for all this time!" And slowly, our steps will make their way to independence.

Where will they go? I wonder. One day, maybe somewhere in New York, someone will open their window and discover that they can now descend directly from the window to the sidewalk, via our steps. And once the other parts of our house see that the steps have struck out on their own, what will be next to separate itself? The back porch? the roof? Soon our house will come apart like a child's play kit house, and houses all over the neighborhood will be swapping parts. We might end up with little gable windows. Another house might gain a white picket fence or decorative Victorian touches. The large, modern homes might suddenly find their spacious deck gone, replaced by a modest, painted wooden porch. Cute little cottages will be overwhelmed with large bay windows.

It's a good thing we live in the middle of a row of houses. If our house were freestanding, there's no telling what the house itself might decide to do.

Now showing

I am not a good companion on trips to places like the aquarium. We have one near us, and I took my out-of-state friend there last month when she came to visit. My attention tends to be drawn to things that aren't meant to be main attractions -- in some cases, not attractions at all -- and I've noticed that other people don't really appreciate having these things pointed out to them.

For instance, at any given display you might hear this:

Other visitors: Oooo! Look at the blue poison dart frog! And there's a rainbow lorikeet! Cool!
Me: Ewww, crickets!

And everyone stares at me as if I've just ruined everything for them.

With all the living things in the exhibits, I am most fascinated by the single dead thing on display, a whale carcass that hangs for several stories. It is without a doubt the largest thing in the aquarium, so maybe that accounts for my fascination with it. Or maybe I just feel safer knowing that, it being dead for at least a century, there is no possible way for it to attack me. Whereas with the other things on display, even though they're in tanks or whatever, you just never know. There could be an earthquake or something that would burst the piranha tank, and boy would the people standing right there wish they had gone to see the dead whale instead.

My friend and I went to see a dolphin show (with live dolphins), which was really the whole reason she had wanted to come to the aquarium. She was feeling nostalgic about the old days at Sea World with Shamu and hoping she could feel some of that excitement again. And she wasn't disappointed.

"Wasn't that a great show??" she said afterward. I shrugged. Most of the show I'd been distracted by how dirty the tanks were, and how many different ways the child in front of me could get his mother to tell him to be quiet and watch.

In the Australia exhibit, there was pretty scenery, some interesting birds and fish, and even a waterfall. I saw a little log, though, that looked out of place, maybe because it had a glass window in it. While everyone around me moved on to more exciting things, I checked this log out. For my curiosity I was rewarded with a closer view of a tarantula than I've ever had in my life, certainly closer than I've ever wanted. I knew I couldn't keep this to myself. I called my friend over.

"Look," I said and pointed, "there's something in there." I conveniently left out what it was.

She screamed so loud even the tarantula was startled.

My friend was too polite to say so, but I know by this time she was wishing I would go away. I know this because she went away, joining herself unobtrusively to some other party who were exclaiming over all the right things.

Later we overheard a young boy, who was peering into a small tank in an effort to find anything living, saying in a rather grown-up tone, "How am I supposed to find something when I don't know what it looks like?" I could have told him a few things to look for, but his mom probably wouldn't have liked them.

Will fall ever come?

A lot of people look forward to the fall season. The air grows crisp, the leaves change to glorious colors, there is hot apple cider to drink, the kids go back to school, you don't have to water your flowers anymore...

Yes, I like fall because I don't have to tend my garden anymore. I can let things die without feeling guilty.

But of course that is not what is happening. My flowers, which stubbornly refused to show much color all summer, are now brighter than ever, happily cohabitating with the falling leaves. I bought a couple of pumpkins and pointedly put them near the garden, hoping the flowers would get the point that it's their time to exit the stage now. But still they bloom.

On one of my daily neighboring strolls I sideswiped a butterfly bush. It was hard to avoid, as it was growing over the sidewalk and into the parking area. In the deepening darkness I walked smack into a butterfly perched on the edge of a white flower.

"Aaagh!" I yelled, startled.

"Aaagh!" the butterfly yelled back.

We stared at each other.

"Sorry," I stammered. "I didn't see you."

It fluttered its wings. "This is a butterfly bush," it said somewhat contemptuously. "I'm a butterfly. You might have expected I would be here."

"Well, aren't you supposed to be somewhere else this time of year, like Mexico or something? Shouldn't you be packing, leaving a forwarding address, that sort of thing? Why are you still here?"

"There's still plenty of things for me to feast on here," it said. "I'm not leaving til the buffet closes for the season."

I sighed. "I suppose I have you partly to thank that my flowers are still blooming," I said, gesturing to our yard a few houses away.

"Ah, yes, those straw flowers and gerberas make for a lovely afternoon treat," it said contentedly. "You're quite welcome for my help."

"I was being sarcastic," I said. "I am not thankful that my plants are still blooming. Things are supposed to be dying now. Could you tell the rest of your cronies that? And the bees, while you're at it? Just let things take their natural course. Like you should be doing, to Panama or wherever you go."

"Please," it said, slowly opening and closing its wings. "Panama is so crowded these days. The commoners have completely overrun it. I'm heading to Bermuda."

"Well, good luck with that," I said. "And please tell your offspring to get an early start next year. I don't want to wait til fall to get some color in my yard."

She says, he says

As girls grow up, their moms pass along a lot of advice on being a good wife someday. Too bad they don't check with their daughters' future husbands on this advice.

"Spend 8 hours making a wonderful meal," we daughters are told. "Your husband will worship you."

My husband wants to know why there are so many dishes and pots and pans for him to clean up after a meal. "I just spent 8 hours cooking this for you," I explain.

"I do appreciate it," he says earnestly. "But could you do it with a few less pans?"

Moms say, "Always make sure your house is picked up. Your husband will appreciate a clean house."

But husbands complain that they can't find anything after you pick up. "I left that hammer right here, in the middle of the bathroom floor. Why do you always have to put everything away?"

We daughters learn how to make a tight corner with the bedsheet, only to be faced with husbands who wonder why the sheets are so tight at the bottom. "I feel like I'm being strangled," they complain.

Moms teach us how to make the perfect pie crust. "And keep the cookie jar full! After all, the quickest way to a man's heart is through his stomach."

But my husband once asked me, respectfully, if I could please not make so much dessert, as he was having a hard time resisting it and didn't want it to go to his waist.

We daughters take care to set a nice, inviting table, arranging the food into lovely serving dishes, because that's what our moms told us to do.

Husbands grab a plate and head to the stove to dish their dinner out of the pan. Or just eat out of the pan.

I think mothers and future sons-in-law need some sort of focus group where they could all get together on the same page about these things. Or, better yet, these situations could be avoided if, instead of mothers advising their daughters on the finer points of being a wife, mothers-in-law did the advising. Since boys basically don't change much after about age 4, their mothers could just take their behaviors when they're young and pretty much predict what they'll be like as husbands. This would allow them to advise potential future daughters-in-law more accurately.

For instance, the mother of a young son could advise a potential daughter-in-law, "His sheets and blankets always end up on the other side of the room during the night, so don't bother making the bed. In fact, he won't even need a bed. Just make a little pallet on the floor for him and he'll be perfectly happy."

Or, "He never sits down to eat, so don't bother setting the table. Just put a spoon by the sink and he'll stand up and eat over it."

This would save both husbands and wives a lot of trouble. Wives would be spared time doing things they don't want to do anyway, and also spared guilt over not doing them. Husbands could happily follow their primal instincts.

At least until their wives step on the hammer in the middle of the bathroom floor.