Never Send A Man To Do A Woman's Job

Let me preface this blog by saying, I am not the type of person that believes that there is "woman's work" or "man's work", but in this household, this woman has several jobs and I do a lot of them well.  That being said, I should know by now which ones my husband excels at, and which ones he fails miserably.  Unless he does a job routinely, let's just say, he doesn't pay attention to detail(s). Tonight, he decided to take our youngest to Target to look around. Since he was going out, and I had to stay home with my eldest, thanks to a stomach virus, I asked him to pick something up for the house.  Our kids love these special snack bars, and Target has the best price on them for a box of twelve. One box of twelve costs about $6.50. One box of six (same brand and flavor) runs $3.50, so of course, I always buy the twelve pack. My kids only like one flavor...chocolate brownie.  As he is leaving the house I specify, "get the big box of chocolate brownie. Okay?"  Then I told him that if he got confused our youngest could help him out, after all she eats more of them than anyone else. She should recognize the box in her sleep. Or so I thought.....

An hour later, my husband arrives home. He hands the bag containing the snack bars to me. I open the bag. Inside are two boxes of six. Now, I have to say here, that my husband is very intelligent regarding math, so I could not understand why he would pay $7.00 for two boxes as opposed to $6.50 for one. I asked him his reasoning. Apparently, our youngest informed him that I did NOT like the big boxes, and he should get two smaller boxes. Really? He thinks I would waste .50 every time I buy those things because I didn't want a bigger box? Had I been in his shoes, and  been given similar information, I would have followed my mathematical instincts, gone with the better buy, and asked my husband about it later. Instead, he went with a 6 year old's word. As if that weren't enough, I pull out the boxes to find he had purchased chocolate chip, NOT chocolate brownie. Chocolate chip may sound just as good in theory, but they are not. They are far less superior than the chocolate brownie. Upon hearing of his mistake, my eldest declared that she would not be eating any of the chocolate chip because she hated them. I was contemplating taking them back to Target tomorrow, but I really HATE returns.  Surely my kids could gag their way through two boxes of chocolate chip, right?  And then I looked at the receipt..."um, honey, where is the third box?" I asked. I was really hoping it had fallen out in the car, because there were only two boxes in the bag. "What do you mean?" he asked. "I only bought two." I handed him the receipt, "But you were charged for 3." He bought 5 items. 5 items! Didn't the total seem high to him? Didn't he at least glance at the receipt? Now I was annoyed. He had paid $10.50 for 12 bars that should have been $6.50. This is where I was hoping to hear, "That is ridiculous, don't worry, I will take them back right this instant!" Instead I heard, "I don't want to take them back. You know I don't 'shop' well, yet you keep asking me to pick items when I am out, and I never get it right." This is true, he never gets it right. The problem is, I BELIEVE he has the capability to purchase an item correctly, so I persist with this false hope that it will work to my benefit just once. This inability, in an otherwise capable man, elicits the suspicion that he flubs every time on purpose, so that I will stop asking him to run errands for me. I am not sure that is really the case, at least not on a conscious level, but the thought does have some merit.  My kids employ this tactic all the time, and sometimes I do resort to doing things myself instead of asking them, just because it ends up being less painful for me in the long run.

Anyway, back to the bars. Part of me wanted to throw a temper tantrum, after all this was not my fault, and he should fix it.  Thankfully, the more rational side of me prevailed, and kept my immaturity at bay. I maintained my cool. "I'll just take them back," I said. Insert here some level of martyrdom on my part.  I may not have had my tantrum, but I did want him to feel some measure of guilt regarding inconveniencing me. "Will they take them back since you weren't the one that was just there buying them?" he asked. Honestly, they probably could care less who showed up with the bag of bars for a return and a full refund as long as we had the receipt, but I wasn't about to cave and admit that. I hedged, "I don't know." After some waffling on both our parts, we reached a satisfactory compromise, though the situation was unsatisfactory all the way around. He agreed to be the "returner" if I at least went along...which meant throwing one pajama clad kid in the car along with the fully dressed one. Fine. If he was willing to handle the return, then I would ride along. In the end, we wasted at least a buck or two in gas, and an extra half hour. It would have been much simpler if I had never opened my mouth in the first place. Lesson learned.