ORGANIZATION – OLD CODGER STYLE

If you have two items on a shopping list, I’m still thinking in terms of taking about half an hour to accomplish the tasks. Not so as the years move on; especially not if the trip involves a husband. Today, as well as the two items listed, we had to stop at the bank to sign a form, which would probably take a couple of minutes. Anything involving Denis immediately places the expedition in danger, so we need a half hour (or longer) planning session to figure out where we are going and what we are going to do. In fact the entire operation makes planning for a trek to the Himalayas looks like child’s play.

Naturally, dog had to come too, since Rufus refuses to accept the term ‘guard the house’. The first call, the bank, went very smoothly and when we returned to the car, I mentioned to Denis that the next stop was Fabricland to get a zipper. I also explained that he would wait while I purchased said zip and then I would take dog and walk to Superstore, while he went by car. I shouldn’t even have mentioned it as it took the whole of the car journey to Fabricland for Denis to understand what was about to happen.

Zip was purchased, I collected dog from car and off we went on our separate ways. I walked to the front of the store by the disabled parking lots but was beaten by Denis who not only swooped into a spot, but promptly reversed and went back the way he had come – at great speed, I might add.

“I paid for the gas”, he called from the car window, “but forgot to put the gas in the tank – won’t be long”. Rufus and I stood there with our mouths hanging open – has it really come to this?

When Denis arrived back to the gas pump, there was a car occupying the space by his pump, but of course the pump wouldn’t start. The attendant in the office told him that she saw him leave without filling the car and immediately turned the pump off. So, it fell to Denis to explain to the two people getting quite exasperated at the pump, that they had to move to another pump so that he could fill his car with the gas he forgot to put in on his first trip!

Finally he returned with a full tank of gas and we managed to shop without further incident, except that I couldn’t get the prescription I wanted, and we had to go to another store.

It was there, while waiting for the prescription to be filled, that I sat talking to a 90 year old, who, in my estimation, looked 70. She had quietly been waiting for at least 20 minutes for someone to give her some information. We commiserated about how long it took to do something these days. She was also bemoaning the fact that every time he saw her, her son-in-law was on her case about what to eat and what not to eat, plus the fact that she should come off all medication! She retorted on all occasions that obviously she was eating the right thing to get to the age she was and she saw no necessity to change.

As we entered the parking lot of the next pit stop Denis suddenly started to drill me about the Stilton Cheese.

“Did you get the Stilton at Superstore”, he asked. “No”, I said, I thought you were going to do that. “ No, I forgot to do it, would you mind to buy some Stilton in Thrifty’s”. And so it goes on.

What should have been a half hour shopping trip, turned into a whole morning nightmare.