Buying Groceries

I went to bed at 10 pm last night so, of course, my eyes pop open at 6 am.

Yesterday I went grocery shopping and Fred came with me. This was only the second time he has been out of the house since his illness and he did quite well apart from aggravating the you-know-what out of me! He still isn’t driving so we took my car. This means I had to move everything from the front seat to the back. Then he muttered because the front seat was already as far back as it would go and that wasn’t far enough for him. {Have I mentioned he dislikes my small Kia?}

When we drove into the parking area, I said, “Shall I drop you off at the front and then park?” He said he would walk from wherever I parked. I then proceeded to park where I usually do which is at the far end of the parking lot so I could walk a longer distance. Before I stopped, he said, “This is too far for me to walk.” Without saying a word, I drove him up to the front and dropped him off.

After I had parked, {closer to the front} I found him in the grocery store and got out the list. Now, when he shops, he dawdles. He enjoys the experience. He looks at the flyers and he looks at everything. When *I* shop, I work from a list and I get the stuff as fast as I can and get out of there. So, after he had dawdled around a bit, I decided to pick up a few things and bring them back to the cart. Then he told me where they were! Excuse me? I DO know where the staples like orange juice and bread and milk are! And, yes, I DO know when the price is $4.00 for two, I don’t have to get two! {I actually said none of this at this point which was my mistake because I found myself getting more and more irritable.} So, we got everything on the list and headed for the checkout.

At this point, he usually walks up and down the line of checkouts seeing which one has the least people with the fewer groceries in it. I was so antsy by then I said, “Why don’t you go and sit down and I will stand in line.” And I grabbed the basket and headed for the nearest shortest line I could see without checking out all the other lines first. He sat on a bench to wait for me because by then he was  getting pretty tired. So, I checked out and we went out of the front of the store. I said, “You wait here and I will bring the car up.”

“No,” he said, “I will walk down to it.” I literally bit my tongue to stop myself saying what I wanted to. We walked down to it.

I said, “I have a system so I will put the stuff in the back.” I did and we went home. Then I said, “I am going to park here {by the door}, bring in all the groceries and put them in the hall and then park my car. Then I will come back and carry the bags up the stairs.”

He said, “Yes, I know that is how you do it. Why are you telling me all this?”

I said, “Because if I don’t, you will tell me how to do it and I want to do it the way *I* want to do it and not the way you think I should do it!”

Oooops! That was one of those “I can’t believe I actually said that aloud” remarks.

He carried two of the bags upstairs with him and I put the rest at the bottom of the stairs. I parked the car, came back and made four trips up and down the stairs carrying two bags each time.  No comments were made. I then put everything away with a lot of slam-banging because by then I was hungry AND irritable.

After I had eaten, I apologised to him for being so rude. He apologised to me. He wasn’t specific about what he felt he had to apologise for. I took it in the spirit it was offered.

We will not buy groceries together again… {I didn’t say that aloud}