I called my wife before I left work. I’m not sure why I did this. Maybe it was out of courtesy. Maybe it’s a habit my mom beat into my head when I was a kid. Or maybe I’m just not that bright.I think it’s the last one.

“I’m going to the store on my way home,” I told her.

That was simple enough, right? In the Western world, a guy saying “I’m going to the store” usually means “I’m out of beer.” Everyone knows that. Well, everyone but women. Read the rest of this article »

Everyone stared as I pushed my shopping cart through the store … ker-thump, ker-thump, ker-thump. You know, foreign automakers should start building shopping carts if only to force the American cart industry into upgrading that one bad wheel.

But it wasn’t the thumpy wheel or that I was trying not to be seen that made people stare like they recognized me from some Internet police database. People were watching because, despite all the beef jerky, beer, and drill bits bouncing around the basket, they knew I was really at the store to buy feminine napkins. Read the rest of this article »

The smell was horrendous … and I grew up on a farm.

My wife’s friend stuck her head through the crack she made peeling open our bathroom door and whispered, “Psst, psst, psst, psst,” like she had a secret.

She didn’t.

This wasn’t a secret to anyone in the house and maybe, just maybe, to people the next block over. She’d stopped up our toilet—again. Read the rest of this article »

I brought home a half-gallon of ice cream from the grocery store. The list from my wife read, “four bananas.” Period. No milk, no eggs, no ice cream. Just bananas.
Normally, to me four bananas means four bananas, but I didn’t write the note. My wife wrote it and I was sure ice cream was hiding in there somewhere. Read the rest of this article »