I have always been The Grocery Shopper. It’s one of my housewifey chores. For the first few weeks after my surgery last summer, Suzanne was the one who had to regularly go to the store. The horror! Because Suzanne doesn’t grocery shop, she is a total comedy of errors when she tries to complete the task. She has no idea where items are located. It takes her an hour to do ten minute’s worth of shopping, and she gets a two-mile walk as she tries to figure out the aisles, while attempting to decipher the unreadable list I give her.
When she’s on the hunt at Dick’s, she sends me a boatload of texts. It’s as if she’s on a treasure hunt for food and she needs clues. In fact, when she’s at Dick’s, we text more than when she’s at work or out of town. And Suzanne is so unenlightened about how to correctly use the self-checkout line that she knows to not even try. It’s a fiasco. Suzanne is brilliant, but not in the self-checkout-line way.
Anyhoo… A few days ago, I didn’t feel like leaving the house, and I needed a grocery or two and some stoopid prescriptions from the pharmacy. I texted Suzanne at her office and said, “Hey, on your way home from an extra-late day at work, will you please add to your overtime by stopping at Dick’s for my Diet Coke and my meds?” I don’t even have to tell her I’m having one of my bipolar days. I don’t have to tell her I couldn’t handle leaving the house and going to Dick’s myself, even though it’s only a block away. If I ask her to go to the grocery store, she knows. And she also knows to not know exactly what I’ll be like when she gets home. The only question in her brain is which side I’ll be on: Will I be manic or depressed? She’s used to both.
While at the store that evening, Suzanne bought me this bouquet of flowers from the we’re-trying-to-get-rid-of-these-almost-dead-flowers section of the floral arrangements. They were discounted. That’s how Suzanne and I both roll. We are not tightwads with our bucks, but we are thrifty. As we know, it’s the thought that counts– with some things, but not all. She knew I would be double happy with this bouquet because it was both a bargain, and– despite its near-deadness– it was still kinda pretty. Blue and tan Tie o’ the Day thought so too.
I thought of this bunch o’ flowers as I think of the Charlie Brown Christmas tree: pathetic and in need of love. It’s cute, in its own way. When she put them in the vase, Suzanne pulled out the really, really dead flowers and threw them in the garbage. I rescued them and stuck them back in. Suzanne wasn’t happy about that, but I was– so she let it go. They were for me, you know.
The second photo was taken fifteen minutes after the first one. The flowers did not suffer long. I can prove that’s exactly what happened. See, I’m wearing the same shirt and same Tie o’ the Day in both pictures. There’s absolutely no way I could fake that. It’s not like I could wear the same attire for a photo a week later. You know it’s against my clash fashion rules to wear the same exact outfit twice– ever! And I am not a rule-breaker. 😉 🤡