Brain Failure on Aisle 9!
When I go shopping, something happens. I enter some magical space-time distortion, where time oozes and store aisles and racks shift around like the stairs at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, along with accompanying little goblins that move around the products I’m looking for in some kind of demonic three-card monte of retail.
The thing that really makes no sense (not even to me) is that I actually enjoy shopping. I’m just terrible at it. So terrible that I can’t even bring myself to blame it on it being some kind of “guy thing.”
The Labyrinth
I don’t do the food shopping in the family, but I do actually go to the grocery store often. Small surgical strikes for missed or needed items. We buy a lot of organic items that you just can’t stock up on unless you like eating really healthy masses of earth-toned mold. Too organic.
Dear Baby Food Aisle, you’re f##king kidding me, right?
When those automated doors slide open, my jaw must go slack and my eyes glazed over. Some kind of cloud of dumb descends upon me. Even if I’ve been to the store hundred times, I’ll zig and zag through aisles and displays as if it was my primary form of exercise. (Honestly it may just be). The stuff will just NOT be there! I swear it!!! And then, of course, it will be there. That’s the goblins at work. They put the stuff back so people think you’re insane when you try to explain about the goblins.
Variety Can Be a Bitter Spice of Life
I know some of what’s wrong with me when I go shopping is choosing. Just general obsession about getting the right thing, not to mention getting the right brand, size, package, flavor, color…ARG!!!
Not too long ago, Lizzie asked me to pick up some new undies and bras for her. Wait. Shop for lingerie for my wife? I admit it, I actually clicked my heels. When I got to the store, the mental meltdown set in immediately. I found a bra style I liked. For her (my man boobs aren’t bra-worthy yet). Anyways, I can remember turning the thing over in my hands pondering the size options. I knew I was facing three possible outcomes:
2) Correct size. Possible effect: Lizzie wondering who I am and what I’ve done with her husband.
3) Too large. Possible effect: Lizzie thinking I want her to get breast implants or that I figured she could carry Lucas in the cups along side her breasts.
It’s not because it’s lingerie. And it’s not that I’m actually worried about Lizzie’s reaction when I shop, or that she ever would make any big deal out of it. It’s that I DO. So, I put the bra down, just too unsure to make the purchase then. Plus, the store clerk was staring at me with a funny look as I stared off into space, fondling a bra.
Another theory is that I lose most of my IQ and all of my perception of the passage of time when I go shopping. But I don’t really care for this one. I’ll go with the mythological type of theory, thanks.
Preventative Measures
Everyone in my family knows to get out a three hour movie or crack open War and Peace when I “head out to the store.” They’re all very… some would say pleading, but I’ll say “encouraging,” telling me not to take too long. I’ll head out with traditional written lists, long texted lists, list apps, writing on my hand, empty boxes for reference””none of it matters. Hah! These measures are no match for goblins and enchanted wormholes that bend the very fabric of reality I tell you!
Facebook is probably going to become a pretty big success, despite popular belief. Come join us.
Kimberly says: 
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