Applesauce

This applesauce thing is really pissing me off.  In fact the entire food thing is starting to get to me. Is it a man/woman thing or a side effect of aging...or both?  In the seventeen years that I have been married to my husband, (referred to by all as Bob #2) his forays to the grocery store have been laden with errors.  And he considers himself the primary grocery shopper. Delusional.

Here is the issue - there are things I like and things I don't like. After seventeen years one might assume that some of these data have embedded themselves in his brain and serve as guideposts as he maneuvers his cart through the supermarket aisles. Alas, that is not the case. Take, for instance, applesauce. I prefer "natural" (no added sugar) he consistently buys "original".  Finding sugar-laden "original" applesauce in the grocery bag or the pantry ignites my "fury" button. "Bob?" "Yeah?" "What's this?". I hold up the jar. "Applesauce," he says. "Bob, this is "original". I hate original. It's too sweet. Haven't we had this conversation a thousand times?" 'I thought you liked original," he pouts. Big sigh. "I'll take it back."  Do you know how many times he has taken it back? Almost every other week for years.

Same thing happens with Fudgesicles. I love Fudgesicles. They are comfort junk.  I am happy peeling off the stuck-on wrapper ( Note: when I was a kid the wrapper slid off - now it gets stuck and has to be peeled off in chunks) My mouth waters when that dusty brown frozen  (almost) chocolate, icy thing is in my hand and standing proudly on its stick. I even have a ritual for eating them...but I digress. The first time he bought them he brought home "sugar free".  "Bob?"  Yeah?"  "These are sugar-free."  "I thought you liked those."  "Bob, sugar-free means aspertame...I might as well eat lighter fluid. Plus it leaves an aftertaste."  "I'll take them back."  "Get me the "original". Never ever get sugar-free anything!"  "Ok."  In the years we've been together he has purchased the correct Fudgesicles once.  Apart from that one time...this conversation repeats itself regularly. I have finally removed Fudgesicles from the grocery list. Hey, I'm no dummy.

( By the way, I "get" that the sugar-free, "no sugar added" "natural" and "original" thing might be confusing.  But after all this time?  Uh uh. Not buying it. Neither is he I guess.)

He also has trouble  thinking universally for dinner. When I hear, "I'm going to the store - I'll pick up something for dinner..." I sigh.. "Dinner" will inevitably be, a pork tenderloin (I'm not a big pork fan) or an over priced hunk of beef tenderloin (I'm a New York Strip kinda girl).  So I usually cook something else for myself. He is okay with that.. "You're missing out on something really good," he announces chowing down on his dead pig or his over-cooked meat .  "My loss," I reply with my usual sarcasm while eating my salad or my pasta with butter, olive oil and cheese.  (My fall backs. My lifelines.)

If I ask for "crackers" he brings home saltines. "These, " I have explained hundreds of times, "are not crackers. I want good, tasty crackers." I rattle off a few possible kinds. He brings home saltines anyway.  "I don't know what you want..." he says.  Really?  Huh, coulda fooled me. He is cracker-phobic. I buy my own crackers now.

"How about Pizza for dinner?" he will suggest at least once a week.  Pizza, for me, is not dinner. I've lost track of the times I've said that to him. I haven't had a dinner-quality pizza since I moved to the midwest. Pizza here is consists of crust that tastes like a saltine, sauce that tastes like ketchup and a chunk of sausage - and I will not eat sausage. (I don't know what's in sausage. Any time someone grinds up a bunch of leftover crap and sticks it in a casing that could have been an intestine, I am highly suspicious.) Anyway, then that "pizza"  gets cut into little squares.  No self-respecting east coast pizza would be caught dead cut into squares.  Everyone knows that pizza comes in wedge shaped pieces and you fold it to eat it. Didn't you watch the Sopranos?

I've considered that all this may be passive aggressive...but mostly I think it's a brain flaw.  When I say something he doesn't retain it..I can hear the vacuum flush in his brain. It's a little like dementia...each time I remind him that I don't like pizza for dinner, or that pork is gross, or that artifical sweetners are poison, he has brain freeze. Not the kind you get with ice cream...the kind you get with a Y chromosome.