Remember when I said women are not good shoppers? Well, here’s something else you can add to the list of things women (or at least the ones I’m married to) can’t do.
Women CANNOT make a proper shopping list.
There is a fine art to making the perfect shopping list. Ideally, it should have items categorized in the precise order in which you will find them in the store. Makes sense, right? Yeah, I know you get your cold stuff last, so those items can go at the end of the list, but you get the idea.
I am proud to say, probably a bit too proud really, that I can create the perfect shopping list for any occasion. My lists are broken down by aisle and quantity of items needed. I even go so far as to write codes next to sale items, for stuff I have a coupon, is hard to find, or which I may want to stock up on. Sometimes I even like to categorize by color of packaging and font used on the label. In short, I write a damned fine shopping list.
My wife, on the other hand, writes something best described as a crime against shopping lists and a felony against the principals of organization in general. It seems almost as if she purposely arranges to give me a week’s worth of my required cardio every time I need to go to the store. This might explain why my most women I know shop in such a haphazard fashion, while men go directly to the aisles where the stuff they need is and then get the hell out of the store.
Let’s say, for the purposes of demonstration, that all items in the store were sold by alphabetical order. You’d have your eggs with your éclairs, etc…
Well, my wife’s list would read as follows:
- Apples
- Cookies
- Toilet paper
- Ziploc Bags
- Apricots
- Paper towels
You get the idea?
My wife’s shopping list more closely resembles a treasure map, than anything you’d bring to the store with you.
This weekend, she handed me a list where nothing was grouped as it should be. No, the list doesn’t have to be perfect (like mine) but stuff should be listed somewhat close to the order in which it appears in the store – the same store we’ve gone to for more than two years!
When I got home, I mentioned my problems with the list, to which she replied, her list is fine, the problem lies with me and my inability to read her list. According to my wife, I should be able to scan the list while shopping and remember what I bought and what I didn’t and have absolutely no trouble navigating the store in any order I choose.
Hell, I should be able to do it with a blindfold and two rabid wolverines fighting for the meat on my left ankle!
I know what some of you are thinking, But Dave, didn’t you say in your other post that men are such good shoppers that they don’t even need a stinkin’ list?
Yes, I did say that. However, that is when we are shopping for things we need. I can’t possibly guess what items my wife will want, though. And she can be quite particular about her food choices. You bring home the wrong scent/flavor/brand of an item and she will let you know about it.
So, there I was, having already bought all the “A” items I could find on the list and was making my way down the “N” aisle, when all of a sudden, I see aluminum foil hidden between Napkins and Q-Tips! I actually said aloud…
“Aluminum F’ing foil?! Come on!”
…as I spun my cart around and headed back to the A’s in an angry huff. Now I know how all those wheels on shopping carts get out of whack – angry husbands shopping from horribly made lists.
I’m pretty sure that if store employees watch their closed circuit security monitors, they grab a bag of popcorn and race to the employee lounge where a screening is being planned the minute I enter the store.
“Hey, it’s that crazy guy that curses out product names and wanders from aisle to aisle like some sort of demented madman.”
And another employee would say, “Oh, that’s just Dave, he’s married.”
Since the shopping trip, I’ve given the list a lot of thought.
I’ve finally figured it out. My wife is far more organized than I am and it’s difficult for me to believe she isn’t doing this on purpose. By drawing maps of bewildering ambiguity instead of easy-to-follow lists, she is either trying to keep me out of the house for extended periods of time or trying to make sure I don’t ask her to ever make a list again.
Hmmm… They always say it’s the nice ones you have to look out for. I think my wife may in fact be an evil genius.
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Dave, Dave, Dave, I shake my weary head. Your humour via your frustration abounds, so I refuse to get bent out of shape based on your rant. Your wife is clearly a saint, and has likely developed coping mechanisms for these sorts of situations, so I wont champion her cause either.
I have one specific comment regarding what you said here: “Hell, I should be able to do it with a blindfold and two rabid wolverines fighting for the meat on my left ankle!”
OF COURSE YOU SHOULD, as most women can.
BTW, it would likely take you less time to reorganize your wifes list to your liking than have a ‘mantrum’ in the store, but then we would miss out on the laugh so, never mind. Thanks for the late humour.
In my experience, I’m the one who goes up and down each aisle in a somewhat orderly fashion (though not with a list as exacting as yours) while my husband just wanders around aimlessly, hoping the items jump into his cart or that resting his head on the cereal boxes will reveal, by osmosis, which one he was supposed to get. However, I know that this is just his personality and not representative of the entire male gender, as proven by your fastidious lists and systems.
I just hope your wife doesn’t ever wreck her car, as I’m sure we will be treated to a scathing condemnation of all ‘women drivers’ as a result. ;-p
.-= Noble Savage´s last blog ..Mad Men, sick baby = busy woman =-.
yeah, that alphabetizing thing sounds good, but “raisins” next to “rat poison”? That would throw me every time.
.-= feefifoto´s last blog ..Departed Celebrities =-.
Actually, I’ve always made my lists in order of the aisles in the supermarket… maybe I’m just a weird woman? Ok wait, don’t answer that!
.-= Marylin´s last blog ..The day half a tree fell down in our back garden =-.
My wife actually prefers that I do the shopping because she knows that I will get only the stuff that is on the list. She went to the store the other day with a list of about a dozen items needed. She’s gone almost THREE HOURS?!!?!?!?!?
When I question her about the list, she retorts that it wasn’t enough.
One time I was picking up bacon.. So I asked, which brand before I left.. She never knows the name of it, she goes.. “The red one” “Do you know the name of the red one?” She starts getting frustrated and goes “I don’t know it’s the only red one I know in the bacon.” All right.. I get there and I see a red one, I question for a second that this is the correct one, but the other’s are not red. My wife can’t be wrong can she. I get home and she goes. “this isn’t the right one!!” “It was the only red one there!!!!”
So it’s really a lose/lose situation in my house when it comes to shopping.. She’s either gone for a fortnight or I’m not getting the right bacon she didn’t ask for.
.-= Eric´s last blog ..Playing Da Fantasy Foosball… =-.
I love her to death, but I loathe shopping with her. Since I’m a SAHD, I make the lists and do the shopping at the grocery store. She keeps a list of items we may need on the side of the refrigerator and I synch her list to mine in the appropriate order. As a result, I do not generally have the wandering store issues.
HOWEVER, what irks me to no end is when we are out running a bunch of errands to a number of stores, she will write a list of all the things we will need in the order in which she realizes we need them. That is not how it is done. That list is organized by store and the order in which you will visit said store so as to create an optimal travel route from home, to said stores and back home without unnecessary backtracking.
This method also requires that you account for the purchase of any perishable items. It never fails that when she prepares this list that it would require the consumption of 30% more gas and add to my aggravation because she likes to ‘shop’ and I like to ‘acquire’.
.-= PJ Mullen´s last blog ..Top 10 Things I’ve Learned About Toddlers =-.
I use an excel spreadsheet & color code the different sections of the list (dry goods, freezer items) & I indicate whether or not there’s a coupon & how many of the item I have to buy to satisfy the coupon. Sounds great, right? But I can never find the raisins where I think they’ll be, or they put kashi with the organic stuff one week & with the regular cereal the next week. I always go systematically up and down the aisles, but then I have to backtrack to get something I thought was somewhere else. Frustrating!
.-= Danabug´s last blog ..Class, Thy Name is Bug =-.
I don’t think this is a male/female thing. It’s just a difference in personality. I’m a chick, and I’m the one who has the mind for organization. I don’t just group items on the list and shop efficiently (I even group my coupons), I also load items onto the check out belt in the order that they should be bagged (frozen items together, produce last).
.-= Alisa Bowman´s last blog ..Recipe for a happy marriage =-.
Dave, I am offended that with such an organized sense of shopping you don’t see the inherent inefficiency in your own map
Why do you traverse your aisles twice? You should be going up one, and down the next.
I think I’ve lucked out. Lately my wife has opted to do all the grocery shopping, leaving me with the kiddos. It’s a win win for both of us. I don’t have to get irritated at her shopping style, and she doesn’t have to hear me complain.
.-= Scott (simplefather)´s last blog ..Monthly Roundup – July/August =-.
Wait, you do the shopping?
Wow…
I’m sorry, did you say something besides that you do the shopping?
Shade and Sweetwater,
K
.-= Kyddryn´s last blog ..Between Times =-.
“There is a fine art to making the perfect shopping list. ..it should have items categorized in the precise order in which you will find them in the store…lists are broken down by aisle and quantity of items needed…codes next to sale items, for stuff I have a coupon, is hard to find, or which I may want to stock up on…I even like to categorize by color of packaging and font used on the label.”
A.D.D *nods sagely*
.-= Marc´s last blog ..Wordless Wednesday: Kung Fu Panda =-.
Great post! I think we could even take it one step further and insist that the stores themselves arrange items in the most customer-friendly manner. For example, light stuff like bread and eggs at one end, heavy stuff like charcoal, canned goods, and beer at the other. That way, you start at the heavy end, work towards the light end, so your food just naturally stacks without crushing stuff.
.-= Chris@Maugeritaville´s last blog ..What Ever Happened To . . . Snap, Crackle, and Pop? =-.
I have to agree with JJ. Your efficiency would increase by at least 50% if you stopped walking up and down each aisle, rather than walking up one aisle and back down the other.
Women totally lack the visualization needed to organize their lists properly.
And when I find an item like Aluminum F’ing foil, I don’t buy it and tell her they’re all out. No way I’m gonna trek all the way across the store after loading up on frozen foods on a hot summer day.
BTW, I generally avoid the aisles. The real food is around the perimeter — produce, dairy / eggs, meat / poultry, seafood, deli, frozen. There’s one notable exception, and it’s not beer. It’s cat food.
.-= Square Peg Guy´s last blog ..Wednesday Weigh-In 20090902 =-.
Oh, I just giggled and giggled reading this. My trips to the grocery store, if a map were drawn based on where I walked, would look just like the one you drew of a woman’s shopping pattern.
And I think to myself every time that the people viewing the security tapes must get a good laugh at that mom going back across the store to aisle 3 for the 5th time.
.-= Kool Aid´s last blog ..Oh, snap! =-.
That diagram of a woman’s shopping patterns actually looks like the path I take trying to find all the things my wife wants me to fetch at the grocery store. I’m waiting for them to invent an in-store GPS so I can find all the crap on the list. Those aisle signs don’t work!
.-= Leonard Klaatu´s last blog ..TYOTL.0006 – What’s Your Why? =-.
True.
I consider myself a proficient shopper, and do indeed compile my list based on product location, changing it if I know I am shopping somewhere with a different layout. I don’t go into your level of detail though.
But I know my dad does the shopping, from my mom’s list. However his first task, is to re-draft her ‘useless’ list.
.-= SingleParentDad´s last blog ..Major rebuild =-.
Oh my goodness, you have made me laugh….alot
.
I loved those diagrams and suspect your wife is indeed an evil genius.
My list is made after I’ve meal planned so tends to be meal by meal. You would hate me LOL! I do my grocery shopping online though so far less legwork and swearing involved.
.-= Insomniac Mummy´s last blog ..Five things….. =-.
I colour code the items on my shopping list and put them in categories so I can skip lots of aisles.
I also make my husband go with me now because he does not like the food I pick for his lunches – so big guy pick your own/make your own selection
I think your wife is definitely working on the “give Dave some exercise” strategy here and figure out if he loves me enough by how little he grumbles and how much effort he puts into the shopping trip?
.-= Patricia´s last blog ..Pictures Worth a 1000 Words? =-.
I work in a deli/grocery store and at least a couple of times a week I get a guy with a whacked out list that their wives give them and I end up having to help them. Its a small store, not a maze, but still the list makes them run around looking for things.
.-= Desert Shark´s last blog ..I Blew Up My Cell Phone =-.
Hardy har har har.
Shall I create a template for a shopping list that is categorized by food type or shall I go in the direction of the layout of each individual store? Half the time I am writing that list, I am fighting a 2 year old for possession of the writing instrument!
Trina – Well, if I made the list right, it would indeed take all the fun of complaining that I get to have.
Noble Savage – LOL on the car thing. As for your husband’s nearly comatose state, I get the same way when I am dragged into stores I don’t want to go to.
feefifoto – Yeah, I’d hate to give rats raisins, accidentally.
Marylin – Perhaps you can do some consulting here?
Eric – Yeah, you can never win when trying to please your wife with shopping.
PJ Mullen – Clearly a man who knows how to make a list! Amen, brutha.
Danabug – Awesome. Yeah, those stores are sneaky like that. They do it on purpose to get you to go down aisles and buy things you might otherwise not have noticed.
Alisa – Awesome. I will say that my wife is good about what order to put things into the cart.
JJ – LOL, good eye! Though, in my defense, there are usually any number of shoppers using those motorized carts blocking me and preventing a more direct method of shopping. (Good excuse?)
Scott – Well, if you really want to call it a win win, she’d take the kids and give you some peace and quiet. Oh, wait, she wouldn’t really be winning there, would she?
Kyddryn – Yes, and I also cook and do dishes. Though before you get too excited, I hardly ever clean the litter box.
Chris – If food didn’t get crushed, you wouldn’t have to go back to the store every other day.
Melissa – Yeah, I got busted there.
Square Peg Guy – LOL. I just give the cats my veggies.
Kool Aid – You must be OCD.
Leonard – LOL. Hey, that GPS idea could really catch on!
SingleParentDad – Your dad is a Genius!
Insomniac Mommy – Online shopping? That takes all the fun out of playing Parking Lot Hell, though!
Patricia – Well, I probably fall short on the grumbling ratio.
Desert Shark – No wonder husbands have shorter life spans!
Blogger Mom – Oh, hi. Um, no template needed. Besides, your sense of direction isn’t always spot on. (braces for impact of flying writing instrument)