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.

[Janie, Jackson and Jilly]

This is so funny and I've been there! We usually start off together in the store, but part ways at some point. Cell phones keep us connected but there are those times I leave mine home and that's when the fun begins! 

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

F, I actually do a lot of shopping from my computer, too, but nothing makes me feel as good as stepping into a Target or TJ Maxx :) I ordered a big bathtub bench for my mom on her last visit from Amazon and it came with only three legs. We were afraid she would sue us if she slid into the tub from her 3 legged bench, so we had to call for a replacement :) LOL Amazon replaced it overnight!! I hope you get your toilet situation cleared up before the neighbors complain.

[F, Calla & Luca]

No one listens to my advice but I'll try anyway. I do virtually all my shopping, except for groceries and the like, from the comfort of my own computer. Recently I have even ordered from nearby stores if they have free shipping. I may, in that case, actually return in person, shocking I know, if I don't want something: ) It is true I have two giant cartons containing pieces of a toilet, the base of which is in shards, sitting on my front porch. Given another few days Amazon says they will take it away. Meanwhile I'm, pretending it's the newest trend in outdoor decorating Being intrepid I didn't let that stop me. Since Amazon no longer had the  item I have one on the way from Home Depot. After all, I had gotten two other toilets shipped in fine condition. I'm hoping one goes before the other arrives, the front porch isn't that big. No more toilets to be replaced, yay.

[Lisa, Daisy & Dexter]

BG - that is hilarious and kind of intimidating at the same time.

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

BG, LOL  I will have to say I find it oddly unnerving to be shopping for a bra and some woman's husband is following her around the bra section. Can't she pick out her own undergarments?? LOL I think the bench idea is better.

[BG and Gavin]

Classic Laurie!  Very, very funny!

Our mall has a bench situated right outside the La Senza (women's lingerie) Store.  All the husbands and boyfriends are lined up on that bench at any given time while their women are in shopping for bras and panties. They are somehow afraid that entering the store will turn them into a cross dresser?

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Thanks, Lisa. Again, something we have in common :) LOL

Maryann, It is my life....LOL!!! Thank you so much for your nice comment.

Donna, I try and give him things to go look for and I have pointed out the Starbucks several times and you know how I feel about coffee. I love that the cell phone rang right behind you. Don't even get me started on the building supply stores...now, I have him drop me at some other nearby store and pick me up later. Aimless wandering, in my opinion. LOL about the paging...I have paged both my DH and kids, but never 3 times in one store :) BTW, my DH did not hear the page! I LOVED your list :)

Jennifer, If anyone walks too closely to the back of my feet, I turn around and give them my really mad stare. I am phobic about having the back of my feet stepped on....ouch :)  Carry a bully stick with you and threaten to put it on him if he doesn't back off.....LOL!!

[Lisa, Daisy & Dexter]

Apparently this is a universal problem...you just described my last AND I mean LAST shopping trip with DH. I now go by myself, if he wants to come it's a sure bet the cells will come along. UGH. Somehow wandering around a store with your cart searching for something besides product, takes the joy out of shopping.

And then there is food shopping, don't even get me started!!!!!!

Great blog!

[Maryann,Roo and Tigger]

Laurie, I can't wait until you decide to write a book.  I will be first in line to buy it.  How do you think of this stuff?

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Donna, I am laughing so hard at that list, especially number 13!