Conversations

     I won’t speak for you, but I know I could use a little levity these days. Compliments of the C.S.O., I had one a little earlier.

     Because she’s still recovering from her recent operation and is medically forbidden to do…well, anything but sit, read, and watch the Idiot Box (damn good thing she likes British murder mysteries), I’ve been doing a lot of stuff that would normally fall on her shoulders. One of those things is grocery shopping, an activity that has never been one of my favorite pastimes. She makes up the list; I go off in search of the often strangely spelled items on it…when I can puzzle out what she means by the marginally-legible scrawls on the tiny sheets of paper she uses.

     Ah well, such is the life of a devoted husband, right? But at least it affords an occasional giggle. Like this morning’s list, which included some remarkable entries (what follows is verbatim from the scribbles on the list):

1. Unc G Xlg eggs
2. Chix PP or Shep PP (BOGO)
3. Ceaser salad (no chix)
4. 3 lg cans enchaleda sauce
5. Tortilla’s

     I was able to puzzle out what was meant by the first four of those:

1. Uncle Giuseppe’s Extra Large Eggs
2. Chicken Pot Pie or Shepherd’s Pot Pie (Buy one get one free)
3. Caesar salad (without chicken)
4. 3 large cans Enchilada sauce

     …but the fifth… Tortilla’s what, for Pete’s sake? Is it a brand name? Wait, hold hard there: did my highly educated wife – two count ‘em two degrees – upon whom legions of Catholic nuns depend for the precise management of their finances, actually mean Tortillas? Could she have… no, I couldn’t bear to think it. So I asked her:

FWP: Sweetie, you’ve just been added to a dispreferred list.
CSO: (looks up from her spreadsheet) Hm? What do you mean?

FWP: (in most solemn tones) What is the plural of tortilla?
CSO: Isn’t it tortillas?

FWP: And how is that spelled?
CSO: Uh…
FWP: Does it contain an apostrophe?
CSO: Uh…does it?

FWP: I must inform you that it does not.
CSO: Oh.
FWP: I’ve enrolled you in Apostrophe Abusers Anonymous. It meets at seven PM on alternate Tuesdays.
CSO: It’s an extra one! I forgot where it was supposed to go and had to use it up.
FWP: I’ll consider your appeal after I finish rewriting the shopping list.
CSO: And done the shopping, the laundry, the cat room, and picked up the back yard, right?
FWP: (facepalm)

     Well, at least she spells my name right. Granted that it took nearly twenty years, but still…