Do You Know Someone Who Needs to Be Microchipped or Outfitted with a GPS Tracking Device?

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

It happened again last weekend.  I lost my husband in Target.  We walked in together and proceeded to the back of the store to the books and magazine section.  I always like to swing back to that department and load my cart with my educational and informative reading for the week.   How else am I going to stay informed about Kim Kardashian’s divorce hell or the 25 stars who ride skateboards if I do not get the latest edition of People or Us Weekly?  At some point, I could find myself in a vicious game of Trivial Pursuit and it could all come down to a Geography question or an Entertainment question.  I may not know where the Swiss Alps are located, but I guarantee you, if the question has anything to do with useless celebrity news I am the girl to have on your team.  Well, tonight I just finished saying to my husband, “Can you believe that Suri Cruise is wearing high heels at her age?” and think I heard him say, “ Who cares?” and I turned around and he had vanished into thin air.

 

My favorite person in the whole world to shop with is my youngest daughter.  We walk into the store together, tell each other when to meet back at the cash register, and we each go on our merry way.  My husband, on the other hand, has two shopping styles.  Either, he is walking so closely to you that you feel like your shadow has come to life or he mumbles something and disappears. 

I know good communication is one of the secrets to a great marriage, so sometimes when he is in his shadow mode, I will say, “what’s it going to take to make you go away?”  Other times, I will point to a TV on in the electronics section and say, “hey, I think I just saw a boob go by in that music video,” in the hopes that he will rush over to see for himself and be distracted long enough for me to make a clean getaway.   I hate to be rude, but he positions himself constantly between me and what I am trying to look at down each aisle and I have remarked, on more than one occasion, that I didn’t know we were supposed to have a total eclipse that day and can he think of any other explanation that a large moon keeps getting directly in my path and all he said was, “maybe the moon is tired of you buying everything under the sun.” 

 

When my kids were little, it was my oldest daughter that plucked my nerves when we shopped.  Usually, we would just enter the store and she would announce that she was hungry or she would wait to let me know that she had to go potty until we were at the furthest point in the store away from the bathroom.  I was not above tossing a box of Animal Crackers in her direction or saying,  “What do you mean, you can’t hold it?  I am not leaving this area until I find a World’s Best Mom t-shirt in my size on this clearance rack.”   Once at TJ Maxx, when I was having what can only be classified as a shopping orgasm because I just scored the deal of a lifetime, I turned around in my euphoric state only to see my daughter had disappeared. 

I guess while I was screaming, “It’s mine, all mine!” she thought it would be fun to hide in the middle of a circular clothing rack and not come out even when her mom was shouting her name and sobbing, “nobody better steal my cart with my goodies while I am looking for my kid!”  After what seemed a lifetime, she popped out from her hiding place only to see that her mother was no longer in her “happy place” and her young life was now in serious peril.

Now, I can’t swear my husband is hiding in the circular clothing racks, but he is as good at disappearing in a store as my daughter was that long ago day.  He disappears so thoroughly that I really believe he has had some kind of SWAT training in a former life and is practicing his zigzagging skills throughout the store or has secretly outfitted me with a motion detector device and is monitoring my location at all times to avoid being found.   Once in awhile, I will catch a glimpse of him and call out his name only to see him duck into another aisle   Later, when I ask him if he heard me calling his name, he always pretends ignorance, but I know in my heart a person doesn’t whirl his head around willy-nilly and yell, “get out of my way, she’s closing in on me,” just on a whim.  

Don’t get me wrong; we have fun shopping together sometimes. Once, I ran into him in the snack aisle and I said, “Hey mister, are you looking for nuts?” and he said back, “My wife has them, “ and just kept walking.  I mean, that kind of hijinks can go a long way in adding some fun to a marriage.  Another time, I saw him covering his face with a magazine and I snuck up on him and waited for him to lower it and said, “boo, I see you!” and his face turned really white and he put the magazine back over his face and said, “how about now?’   When I lost him in Target this last time, things got a little heated up at the checkouts when we finally hooked up and both of us said some things we probably regretted later.  I told him I had been all around the store twice looking for him and I even stopped and asked an employee where the dumbbell aisle was located, but after the worker asked me what kind of dumbbell I was looking for and I said, “the one I married,” he just laughed and didn’t offer any further assistance.  I then went on to say that he is either going to have to wear a bell in the store or let me microchip him with a tracking device and this started another discussion as to where the microchip might need to be inserted.  All he said when I settled on the perfect location was, “go ahead, but I don’t hold out much hope of it lasting there.”

Part of the blame falls on my shoulders, because I am always in a hurry and I almost always forget my cell phone, which could solve a lot of problems.  I am a quick shopper and when I am done, I’m done, and I want to leave. I don’t want to spend an extra thirty minutes searching for someone and I certainly don’t want to stand outside the men’s bathroom and ask some poor guy coming out of it, if there is a guy in there reading the newspaper and would he mind going back in there and telling him to hurry up.  I also have thought about asking the store manager if he has noticed other wives having this same problem and maybe he needs to come up with a lock down system when a husband goes missing.  They could call it Code Where the Hell Did He Go Now? and immediately start making announcements over the PA system, “Attention All Shoppers: We have another lost husband.  He is wearing a green shirt, blue jeans, and probably eating a bag of popcorn. If you see a path of popcorn kernels, please alert management.  Do not approach him. He is a flight risk.”  If the other lost husbands are like my husband, they won’t even hear the announcement, because of a condition known as selective hearing, which often goes hand in hand with male chromosomes.

 

Well, I didn’t want to dwell on this and was determined to put the past behind us, so right up there at the checkout lines, I told my husband someone on DK had a great suggestion recently. They said to hold hands if you start to argue, because it is harder to fight when you are connected.  He was reluctant at first, but I reached for his hands and held them tightly and finally said, “Gosh, I am feeling better now.”  All he said was, “I’m not.  I can’t feel my fingers. Please let go or I am leaving!” 

I just held on tighter, because I was not going to risk losing him again. All I know is Fudge and Vern are not the only ones who need work on their recall.

[Sherri, Sophie, Winston, & Kitty]

Here you go: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/tech-news/apps-that-... 

[Sherri, Sophie, Winston, & Kitty]

Laurie, your blogs are always so great. I wish I could microchip my keys. Also, my id badge for work. It is so embarrassing the number of times I forget it and have to call someone to come down and sign me in.

 

My parents love telling the story of the time my brother got lost in the mall when he was about 7. When we finally tracked him down he said to them "There you are! I was looking for you everywhere. I can't believe you guys got lost". LOL. What a goof.

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Nicky, You sound like you were a very reasonable and rational mother. I usually screamed...LOL!!

[Nicky, Riley & Boris]

I remember the conversation, I said "Jessica, Mummy was very worried and was looking for you everywhere, I'm so glad I found you".  She answered.  "We always go to the bookshop and I needed a new book so I came here for some peace and quiet"!!!!!  Needless to say I poured myself a large Brandy when I got home.  

My second daughter (aged two) disappearing for a whole hour when we moved into our new house is a whole other story!!!!!

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Pat, What I want to know is.....did you get out of line to save her? LOL Thanks for my morning laugh.

[Pat and Traveler]

Love this blog AND all the comments!  I was waiting in line to pay for stuff one time when my daughter wandered off a ways and managed to get onto an up-going escalator.  When she realized she was sliding away from me, she howled and screamed so hysterically that people were running around like ants trying to save her.  It was very unnerving, but I must say there were tons of rescuers available for a screaming child being abducted by an escalator.

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Nicky, Thank you! You must have been in full blown panic mode for those twenty minutes and there she was, reading a book :) I wonder what was the first thing you said...LOL!!

Deanna, Wow...if you took him, he would get lost going to the store, in the store, and on the way home. I say you should continue to leave him at home :) LOL

Ricki, Lurch following you around....LOL!! I always say I look like Lurch in our family photos :) That little Tara has more tricks than even the ones you have been video taping :)

Janie, We went tonight and everything worked out fine THIS time...LOL!! I even remembered my cell phone :)

[Nicky, Riley & Boris]

This is so funny.  I have a cousin who has a special whistle that her husband comes to.  They've been married for 40 years and it's always worked lol.  My partner is awful to go shopping with, he just does the disappearing act like yours.  I did lose one of my daughters when she was three years old in a shopping mall and I was frantic for 20 whole nerve wracking minutes during which time I had gathered hordes of shoppers who were sent off in different directions in search parties.  There was a river behind the mall and a highway at the front.  The police found her sitting reading a book at the very back of a book store on the third floor in a little corner 20 minutes later.

[Deanna & Desi & Cori]

Another hilarious blog, Laurie!  My husband is basically a hermit and prefers to stay home whenever he can, so I do most of the shopping.  He'll take an occasional run to Safeway or Costco, but usually by himself.  We've lived in the same house for almost 30 years (in a rural area between two medium sized towns) and my husband still doesn't really know his way around either of the towns.

[Ricki and Tara (doodle)]

I don't have a problem with my DH wandering off I have just the opposite problem. He hovers!! He hovers and keeps saying "What's next???".  He's very tall so it is like having Lurch following me around. It drives me nuts.  Now that I have Tara I try to bring her along whenever I can and put him in charge of her in the store. This keeps him plenty busy and out of my hair! :)