Off on a shopping expedition, my dear
Unlike wives who buy according to budget, men are naturally curious and look upon each shopping expedition as just that...an expedition.
We chaps enjoy our shopping, we don't see it as a chore. To us the aisles are full of potential excitement, there are new items to be found, deals to be made, advantages to be taken, it is a campaign, a voyage of discovery. Like Ibn Batuta finding new lands.
So what if this is the fifth free mug we are getting with the giant sized toothpaste of a brand we don't use it, look at it this way. One more buy and we have a set of six mugs. Men like to investigate new things. If there is a Stinging Nettle fortified juice hitting the market we want to know about it, test it.
If there is someone selling a new cheese brand with pumpkin pieces who are we to deny him the satisfaction of buying one packet.
And if digestive biscuits are going two in one all wrapped up in cellophane that's a steal.
Women do not understand this open-ended approach to shopping that their husbands have. How do you know whether you'll like something until you try it out?
An hour later, refreshed by all the challenges he has faced and overcome (by giving in and buying anything that tickled his fancy, roused his curiosity or awakened his imagination) husband comes home as triumphant as Hagar the Horrible after one of his campaigns.
The wife begins to take out the stuff.
The conversation goes something like this:
Why did you buy strawberry milk?
It was on half price.
No one drinks strawberry milk in the house, our children are in college and what is this?
It is a dried Thai fish, it was intriguing.
Intriguing, intriguing is reading a book or watching Criminal Minds, why did you buy Bobbin's raspberry nectar, what possesses you to do these things and this onion cheese, who eats onion cheese?
You haven't tried it yet.
And why three jars of lemon curd?
You got one free if you bought two.
Yes, dear, but we don't eat lemon curd and did you have to buy cinnamon bread?
The man said it was a new flavor, seemed worth a shot.
That's just the point. We want to take that shot. Women don't. We want to check out the new, the exotic, the special. Women don't. To us a new cold drink flavor, a new cereal, a fruit pulp, a pastry, a hair gel, a cologne is a beacon and we must investigate it. Women don't.
Like I was in the shops yesterday and they were selling teabags with a free jar of jam.
So I bought it. Bargains are made of such deals.
My wife said, 200 teabags, whatever for?
We got the jam free.
But we don't eat jam.
Yes, we do.
No, we don't, open the fridge and see the last jar, it has been there for yonks, besides which you don't like strawberry, why did you buy it?
See what I mean, no feel for things.
Can I help it if there is this monthly clean up of the fridge, where evidence of this free spirited shopper is flung away. Like garlic bagels, tomatoed herrings, red lumpfish caviar, pumpernickel, lowfat rice pudding, carrot halwa studded with cashews, half eaten cans of cheese and spaghetti with chopped chives and ourgettes steeped in olive oil dressing that was going for 30 percent off. So you win some, you lose some, way it goes. The carrot halwa wasn't that bad.
Cramp our style, that's what these ladies do, they don't understand the nature of true shopping. Excuse me, Sir would you like to try our new cucumber cheeselings with eggplant flavoring.
Of course, I would.
