Husband Grocery Shoppers

By Sarah Fisk

I was sitting with friends one day when the subject of grocery shopping came up…specifically, husbands who go grocery shopping.  (Please note, we women were not complaining, just voicing our observations.) Together we identified six types of husband grocery-shoppers.

#1—The Bonus Buyer: This husband will buy what is on the grocery list, but will also include extra items that catch his eye or make his mouth water.  If he goes to the grocery store while his wife is ill, she can plan on a trunk load of “soothing foods”—as an offering of love and sympathy.  Examples of “soothing foods” include jars of corn nuts, spicy pork rinds and cherry-flavored water (bought once for a wife with a bad back).  Pickled pigs feet and canned sardines are the two purchases I can always count on when my husband goes to the grocery store.  And then, those jars of feet and cans of fish sit on my pantry shelf for months until I finally throw them out.  This particular husband/shopper may also show tendencies toward…

#2—The Grazing Hunter: This husband goes to the grocery store to eat.  He shops only on weekends because he loves to get something for nothing and a sampling of imitation crab on a cracker or cocktail wieners in barbecue sauce is his idea of a good time.  If the grazing hunter does go shopping, he doesn’t eat much for dinner that night…he’s too full.

#3— The Precise Shopper: This husband buys only what is on the grocery list he has been handed.  He makes no substitutions; he never deviates from the list. However, he doesn’t ask for help when looking for listed items either so, he never buys everything on the list. A grocery list with bread crumbs or sun-dried tomatoes has no hope of being filled and brought home.

#4—The Bulk Purchaser: This husband only shops at discounted warehouse stores, proudly carrying his special shopping card in his wallet at all times.  He offers to go for a twenty dollar bag of dog food and comes home with $200 worth of groceries including five pounds of shredded Cheddar, a three gallon jug of laundry soap and ten pounds of T-bone steaks.  He is proud of his savings; his wife wonders what he was thinking since they are a family of two.

#5—The Missing Link: This husband never goes to the grocery store.  He remembers when milk cost “three half gallons for a dollar” and eggs were twenty-five cents a dozen and he still thinks those prices are today’s prices. He doesn’t know you can buy potted plants, specialty wines, and an assortment of finishing nails in the grocery store.  He doesn’t know that he could do his banking, pay our light bill, and refill his prescriptions at the grocery store.  He knows none of that and doesn’t care.  The missing link expects his wife to do the grocery shopping…always.

#6 The Future Hope: This husband is efficient, capable, and willing.  He reads the grocery list and follows it, but can use good judgement for substitutions.  He goes to the grocery store any day of the week and uses logic when buying quantity and good sense when buying quality.  He stays away from pickled pig’s feet and canned sardines.  Does this husband exist? Not in our homes. But our sons are “The Future Hope” because we mothers raised them to adjust to a changing world.