My husband is working a late shift. I go to the garden gate with him to see him off. A woman and a little girl are walking past in the street.
Little Girl: “MUMMY! THOSE TWO MEN JUST KISSED!”
That woman avoids eye contact with us.
Woman: “Yes, that’s because they’re in love.”
Girl: “Awwww!”
I have a horrible habit of bringing my glasses cloth into our living room and losing it. My wife finds it funny and likes to tease me about it.
I just received my new glasses and I’m cleaning them on the sofa, settling the cloth beside me. Unbeknownst to me, it’s started to slip between the cushions.
My wife, playing distraught, says loudly to the cloth:
Wife: “YOU WON’T LEAVE HERE!”
I’ve just come home from a cycling tour which took a little longer than I thought and therefore was quite tiresome. My wife has been working in the garden and I promised to help her out a little more.
Wife: “Can you go buy us a rake? I need a metal kind. I’ve sent you a picture to make sure.”
She sent me a screenshot from Google. One of the pictures in the screenshot is from the website of a certain hardware store, which is not the nearby hardware store in our village.
Me: “Okay. Can do. But… wait. Are they open during the health crisis?”
Wife: “I checked. The website says they are.”
This seems odd to me, so I check, too.
Me: “This says they only do pickup.”
Wife: “The site I checked claimed it was open.”
I get somewhat suspicious. I have a tendency to read stuff too hastily, but she has the tendency to interpret stuff a little differently than I do.
Me: “I really think they aren’t open.”
Wife: *Sighs* “Just go. If not, what does it matter?”
Me: “Fair enough.”
I take out my bicycle again.
Wife: “You want to carry a rake while cycling? That’s not practical, dear.”
Me: “I’m quite sure I can manage.”
Wife: “Darling, please. That’s not a good idea, and it’s absolutely not necessary for such a short distance. It’s a one-minute walk.”
No, it isn’t, I think. [Nearby Hardware Store] is a ten-minute walk. I am getting annoyed, but I have the feeling I’m not winning the discussion, so I take the passive-aggressive route. (Yes, it’s petty.) I decide to go down to [Nearby Hardware Store] like she asked, stand in line for ten minutes, ask them if they only do pickup, and then go back to tell her she was wrong. This goes as predicted.
Me: “Good afternoon. Is it pickup only?”
Employee: “Yes, do you have an appointment?”
Me: “No. Sorry to bother.”
Employee: “What are you looking for, then, sir?”
Me: “Oh, a metal rake. Like this one.” *Shows the picture*
Employee: “I might have one like that. Shall I take a look?”
Me: “Oh, yes, please.”
It turns out they have one left and I can buy it at the pickup counter after all. I go back home and feel happy that my wife did convince me to go after all.
Me: “I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that they were pickup only. But the good news is that they went into the store to get me this rake anyway. And when they open, I can return it within thirty days.”
Wife: “Oh, but this one is perfect, so there’s no need for that. Thank you, honey!”
We finish the gardening and that’s that. A week later, my wife is checking our finances.
Wife: “Darling, we never went to [Nearby Hardware Store] last week, did we?”
Me: “Yes, I went there. For the rake, remember? We had a whole discussion about it.”
Wife: “Wait… You went to [Nearby Hardware Store]?”
Me: “Yes?”
Wife: “I asked you to go to [Gardening Store at the opposite side of the street].”
Me: *Long pause* “That explains our different findings on the Internet. And why you said it was a one-minute walk.”
When my wife gets tired, she tends to mix up words and names. But I’m quite sure that this time, I was the one who mixed up due to being tired.
I’m doing a cover shift in the deli at a large supermarket. A young bloke comes in, obviously not having showered for a couple of days, with a dumper — half-smoked and extinguished — cigarette in his mouth. He orders five slices of Devon, a lunchmeat. I take out the slices and bag it up, and as I’m about to print out the label, he says:
Customer: “You’re going to run that through as chicken, right?”
Me: “No. It’s Devon.”
Customer: “Yeah, but you need to run it through as chicken breast.”
Me: “I can’t do that. It’s Devon. And it’s significantly cheaper than chicken breast.”
Customer: “Yeah, but my wife sent me here to get chicken. We can’t afford chicken and she’s dumb as dog s***, so if you just put chicken as the label, that’ll fool her.”
Me: “I can’t do that, sorry. Maybe try writing chicken on the bag once you’ve left the store?”
The customer nodded as if I’d given him something profound to think about. He took the Devon and walked off. It was by far the strangest interaction I had that day.
My wife and I had similar upbringings but grew up with very different approaches to money. I save and am very risk-averse; she spends and enjoys it. We complement each other well; a few times a little extra savings has really helped us out, and if she didn’t push me to enjoy the money, we wouldn’t have the memories or experiences we have.
However, it can be a bind at times.
Wife: “I’m nipping out; I’m meeting [Friend] for a drink.”
Me: “Oh, sorry. I’ve had a drink already; I can’t drive you.”
Wife: “Oh, d***. It looks like rain, as well.”
Me: “Never mind. There should be cash upstairs in the bedroom. I keep it aside in case of things like this. You can take a taxi.”
Wife: “Oh! You were keeping it for a reason? I might have spent that on shopping.”
Me: *Sigh* “No worries. I have some change that might get you a taxi.”
Wife: “The change you had in the top drawer?”
Me: “…”
Wife: “Yeah, I spent that, too. Sorry.”
Me: “Might want to take an umbrella, then.”
She had to walk and did get drenched, but she still had a good time with her friend. I restocked the cash and she hasn’t “borrowed” it yet.
