Oct. 29, 1997
Other people observe Halloween by dressing up in costumes, getting
a kick out of scaring the kids or having a party featuring witches, ghosts
and goblins. Well, all that's changing at Dave's place.
Domestication tends to change the lives of even career bachelors.
When Peg wants to really scare me good, she just drawls, "Dave, let's
go shoooooooooooop-ping!"
Lock me in a stake-lined coffin if you want to; there's nothing
scarier than the prospect of a day cruising bargains with a confirmed shop-aholic.
Among the many disgusting habits I developed during 39 years
of maintaining a non-domesticated status is a very male sense of
shopping prudence. When I go to the store, I know what I'm there for, I
go in and get it, and I get out.
Grocery shopping, for example, used to take me a grand total
of 15 minutes: bread, lunchmeat, cheese, sugar, tea, soap and dogfood.
The other shoppers used to like to see me in line ahead of them, because
it meant they wouldn't have to wait long.
Along comes the love of my life — who thumps melons, checks egg
cartons, does on-the-spot algebraic price-comparison computations and can
stare at a row of canned vegetables for 15 minutes before deciding which
one "looks right." Stopping at the dairy case, she pulled out five identical
cartons of milk, giving each a thorough look-over before finally deciding
that only one of them felt right.
She kinda got the hint when, while examining 10 different shades
of lipstick on the makeup aisle, I waited until an elderly couple passed
by to exclaim in my best effeminate voice: "Honey, you know that color
is just not my shade!" Seeing Peg's luxuriant blush was worth the horrified,
disapproving look I got from the other couple.
Among the items which made it into our cart during that trip
were some Epsom salts: my feet needed them by the time we got home.
Grocery shopping is nothing, however, when compared to shopping
for other things.
One of few drawbacks I've found to living in Katy is the fact
that if you want to find any really neat stuff in a store, you have to
drive all the way into Houston to get it. We live out here in the sticks
because we like the "isolated" atmosphere, yet we crave all the really
neat stuff that's 50 or more miles away and at the same adamantly refuse
to let anyone bring us any of that really neat stuff.
Peg's one of those folks who approach shopping in the same way
that bureaucrats approach the tax code: they make it so long, drawn-out
and confusing that you never actually get what you went out for in the
first place.
Over the last couple of months or so, we've mounted about 12
major expeditions into Greater Houston's shopping jungle, ostensibly to
find (a) new business wear for Peg and (b) some nice outfits for Peg to
wear when we go out dancing.
To date, we've acquired five new pairs of pants, a new suit,
three new shirts, two Halloween costumes and new footwear — all for me.
We actually managed to get Peg an evening dress for dancing on the most
recent expedition, but that was only because I convinced her it simply
wouldn't hang right on me.