Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Ma'am, do you have a tuba on your front porch?

How many times have we heard that; can I get an Amen?  I've been a wife and/or mother for 32+ years now-that's a lot of cooking if your men aren't cookers.  And they aren't.  Two husbands, three sons, two fathers-in-law-no happy cookers.  So, a couple of years ago I made a stand.  I no longer found thinking of appealing meals, gathering recipes, making a list, driving to the grocery store, spending an hour going through picking up the items, going to the check out and transferring the items onto the belt, then (if I haven't used self-check and bagged my own things) transferring the bags back into the cart, transferring the bags into the car, driving home, carrying the bags inside and putting them all away, then cooking, which I lost complete interest in about 30 years ago, interesting.  And I have some picky eaters and they all have different desires.  And, they often call audibles after the meal is made or feel the need to enhance what I've done.  They can't figure out why it pisses me off.  I'm of the mind that there are the two classic choices-take it or leave it.  The one who makes the "bacon" to buy the bacon is one of the worst offenders.  A product of the fifties, when it comes to anything other than sex, he wants me to be his mother-ugh.  Uh ha, ya, then I want to have sex.  Soooo, this stand I made?  I'm having the groceries delivered.  Paul is dying (mmm...) to crunch the numbers on the price of this form of grocery shopping but not badly enough to actually do the experiment himself so, until that day comes, I have most of my groceries delivered.  Not only does it save time and gas but I have lots of time to go over recipes and several hours to add items that I've forgotten which, of course, occurs several times during the process.  It also keeps me from grabbing those Twinkies or cookie dough roll that might catch my eye while in the store.  I do purchase a lot of things from Target since they expanded into full grocery store mode a while back; they are cheaper and I don't mind going there so much.  See, where we live (a planned community-don't get me started) they hide such unattractive places like gas stations and food stores so one must drive far to get to these places whereas Target was built after Mr. Rouse lost control and it's near us.  A Wegman's is being built and will open down the road in June.  It's like Harrod's without the clothing or huge prices.  It's a gourmet grocery store; mood lighting, all the different kinds of food that you have to scramble all over town to get but in one place.  Great health food section.  Peapod no more when W's opens.  Anyway...the tuba...last week after I ordered my groceries, I did it so late that I had the 4:30-9:30 time slot.  We always get the last delivery when I do this.  I had to pick up Matt and his buddy from the mall (Friday night) when I saw the guy turn onto our street.  Only Justin and "Woof Woof Woof Woof, you get it" were home so I stopped the guy to tell him just to drop the stuff on the porch and not ring the doorbell because Justin was ill and Boh would scare the crap outta him.  I signed the paperwork and drove away.  He was at the end of our not-that-long block.  TEN MINUTES LATER he called me back.  I felt terrible.  We had a new front porch installed a couple of months ago and I can't seem to remember to put new numbers on the house.  And we share a driveway with our neighbors whose house is turned ever so slightly enough that you can't read their house numbers, so...my cell phone rings TEN MINUTES LATER and the guy says, "Ma'am, do you have a tuba on your front porch?".  I sheepishly said yes and apologized profusely for not having house numbers (and it was dark anyway).  Matt wondered why he didn't mention the sink in the front flowerbed...

3 comments:

Julia said...

Why in the he$$ do you cook? You must attend The I Don'T Cook Anymore School" given by me every damn day.

Cooking is overrated. Much like laundry.

If you yell loud enough, you scare them away and they don't ask questions.

You're welcome. Mizjuney

xoxo

Doojies said...

Miz Juney, There is no yelling loud enough! And don't forget, I have a 15 year old growing-two-inches-a-day boy still at home to feed. It's not so much him as the from-the-1950's guy...

Doojies said...

P.S. We have no Luby's or Schlotsky's here either. Matt and I could get away with cereal but I'm already not looking like Mrs. Cleaver so my status is somewhat wobbly.