| Stephen Lewis: Friday night date night always in the land of falling prices |
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By: STEPHEN LEWIS, Post Staff Writer
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Posted: Sunday, February 22, 2009 6:37 am
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Have you ever wondered who invented certain things? You don’t. Well I do. I love to hear stories or watch TV programs about inventors and their inventions. Recently I started to question who invented some of the non-tangible things in life. The one that really has me curious is who invented marriage. Think about that for a minute. Marriage is probably a relatively new concept in the grand scheme of things and someone, somewhere, had to be the first couple to be married. What got me to thinking about this was a conversation I had recently with my barber. He mentioned that when one of his customers is dating a woman the customer would take his girlfriend with him everywhere he goes including the barbershop. But when they get married, you rarely see them together again.
Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t necessarily believe in what my barber says about marriage. In fact, I am a very extremely happily married man. Well, I’m an extremely happily married man. Okay, I’m a happily married man. Oh all right, I’m a married man. Regardless of how I describe my marital situation it is a fact that you will see the wife and me together regularly. Friday nights are our date night. We always stop for a bite to eat and then it’s off to the romantic world of Wal-Mart. Nothing says romance like shopping for cheaply made Chinese products in the land of falling prices.
I don’t know about other wives but shopping with mine is one step up from water boarding. If those terrorists refuse to talk let them spend two hours with my wife shuffling through a stack of expired coupons. Why can’t my wife see that you’re really not saving money if you have to buy six of something to save fifteen cents? Just buy one and save the cost of the other five.
I think the worst part about the shopping is the excruciatingly large selection of every single item we are looking for. Take shampoo for instance. For some reason my wife won’t buy the same shampoo two times in a row. Apparently when God made women’s hair he used some special material that builds up a tolerance to shampoos if they are used too frequently. I’ve used the same shampoo for the last 20 years. I once ran out of shampoo and didn’t buy any for three weeks. During that time I realized that Safeguard, shaving cream, and Listerine all made fine hair cleaners. I will admit on the days I used Listerine I smelled a little mediciney but my hair certainly was shiny. I even once used something under the bathroom sink that didn’t have a label on it. It smelled clean but did leave my hair with a tint of blue.
And what’s the deal with this conditioner stuff? To my knowledge my hair has never been exposed to conditioner unless this is the same stuff we used to call cream rinse. And what happened to cream rinse? It was here one day and gone the next. My mom used to buy the cheapest kind available. Of course when I was a kid I don’t think you had quite the selection we have now days. Now you can buy conditioner for dry hair, oily hair, brittle hair, fine hair, long hair, short hair, colored hair, frizzy hair, dark hair, light hair, curly hair, and straight hair. The one type of hair they don’t make it for is my type: bad hair.
A really bad shopping trip includes a trip to the female product section. It’s this giant wall of pink, purple, and turquoise. Usually I just keep my head down and try not to make eye contact with anyone else. If we’re there for more than about 45 seconds my stomach starts to hurt and I start sweating. I tell my wife to meet me in the dog toy section when she’s done.
Somewhere around the hour and a half mark I give my wife the “warning sigh.” She knows this is my cue to wrap things up. I’ve rediscovered a technique I used as a child when I was shopping with my mom that works to hurry my wife’s shopping up even better than it did my mom’s. I pretend my legs quit working and I fall down on my back and swear I can’t go on any longer. It’s basically the adult version of the tantrum some of you may have thrown as children. My mom used to snatch me up and hit me on top of the head with her knuckles but at least we got done with the shopping pretty quickly. You do need to be careful when using this technique or you may end up having a large lady perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on you.
So you can see that some of us married folk still like to spend time together. Whether it’s shopping, eating out, or just people watching at the mall, we still like to spend time together outside of the house. Of course when you’re married to me it really helps that you have a good sense of humor and are willing to put up with my shenanigans. Isn’t that right honey? Sweetheart? Aw, come on baby, I’m only joking. I don’t care what type of shampoo you.....
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