The difference between men and women

I went shopping yesterday. Grocery shopping. This doesn't happen often because Jackie contends I hold her up. This is pure fabrication and I set out to prove it. I picked up a loaf of sliced pumpernickel, a bag of ciabatta buns, a package of bite-size Snickers, a can of party peanuts and a container of ice cream. With the essentials taken care of I joined her in adding the rest of the stuff to the cart.
This proved my point, of course. If a man wants a loaf of Nickle's white bread he picks up the one on top and tosses it into the cart. A woman will stand back and look over the long row of 50 different kinds of bread, eventually picking up the top loaf of Nickle's white bread and squeezing it. Nine times out of 10 it's too soft or too hard so she reaches for a different loaf.
It gets worse at the canned goods aisle. If a can of Hunt's Tomato Sauce is on the list a man takes the top can and hurls it into the cart. A woman picks up the top can and for a moment studies the label. Then she takes an identical can and with one in each hand, compares them. As often as not she puts both cans back and does it all again with two different cans. In due time she goes back to the first can and reluctantly places it in the cart. A man can only stand tapping his foot while this goes on.
If man has bacon on the list he reaches for the package on top and drops it into the cart. A woman picks up the one on top and looks it over. Satisfied with the flat side, she holds it sideways and scans it slice by slice. It's never good enough so she repeats the routine with another pack. After that she is likely to shake her head and move on without bacon.
A man may see a couple of other men he knows and they say, "Hi," in passing because each is on a mission. A woman comes face to face with another woman she saw three hours earlier and both act like it's an unexpected reunion after 30 years of being apart. They'll talk for five minutes or so, laughing and giggling about something that probably has to do with men.
At the fruit and vegetables. Jackie picked up a cantaloupe and examined it as closely as a bomb expert examines an unexploded grenade. Then she sniffed it. A man would rather undergo the Chinese water torture than be seen sniffing a cantaloupe. After half a dozen melons failed the sniff test, she found one that pleased her.
So that's the way it went yesterday. After what seemed an eternity we approached the checkout lanes. But no, Jackie suddenly remembered one more thing which naturally was 50 yards away at the far end of the store. Mission accomplished, she headed back toward the checkout area with me following 10 or 12 feet behind. Along the way she glanced over her shoulder and said, "Will you get a move on? You're holding me up."

Ah, Dick. I assume you have an understanding Jackie.

Jim

I do not like to shop.
I won't go to the mall if I don't have to.

Grocery stores drive me nuts.
And when it comes to grocery shopping, I shop more like you, Dick than Jackie.

Go in. Get what I need. Get out ASAP.

Just call me Jackie.

My own Jackie is the list shopper and I'm the one who insists on surveying all the aisles at the warehouse stores, Sam's Club and Costco, on the theory that we may not know we need or want something till we see it.

Jim

Wife: "I was going to make beef stew for supper tonight, but we need
potatoes and a couple cans of diced tomatoes. Would you mind...?"

I sigh loudly and go to the store (I really like her beef stew). I know
our Kroger layout well, so I head immediately to the produce section
and straight to the potatoes, pausing only long enough to check
price-per-pound. Making a u-turn at the end of the aisle, I hit the
canned foods, grab two cans of tomatoes and head for the checkout
lines. I look not only at the number of people waiting in each line,
but carefully check out the amounts in each shopping cart, and the
age/experience level of the clerk at the register. Making my selection,
I am in and out of the store in near-record time.

That's the difference between men and women. My wife would have come
home with the car loaded with groceries and the request, "Oh, I forgot
the potatoes. Would you mind...?"

Quote :

You are talking about food
shopping. What about auto parts or cd's? Or even a home improvement
store? How about a plant store or nursery? Huh Huh Huh? *grin*

Same thing, Sue. If I am at Home Depot for a particular drill bit, or a
new hammer, that is what I come out with. Now I may pause briefly for
an hour or two in the power tools section... lol

The actual differnce between men and women: a few carbon atoms, a few nitrogen atoms, some hydrogen atoms, and some oxygen atoms. Genetically, women and men differ by only one chromosome (men are XY and women are XX). In fact, science tells us that all humans on earth are 99.9% genetically identical. Furthermore, science tells us that humans are 98.4% identical to chimpanzees, our closest living genetic cousins. Well, what I'm getting at is that very small variations can result in great differnces. Look at how much diversity there is in the human race, yet all humans are genetically 99.9% identical. I think most of the differnces in people, including the appearent differnces between men and women are a result of differnces in how we are raised as children. Although there are physiological differnces between the sexes, which account for some of the differnces between them, I think the bulk of the differnces between men and women are the result of differnces in how we raise male and female children. I think most of the differnces are a result of nuture rather than nature.

Dick said:

Quote :

Jackie picked up a cantaloupe
and examined it as closely as a bomb expert examines an unexploded
grenade. Then she sniffed it...

I gotta go with Jackie on that one. I am our family's expert cantaloupe
sniffer - and watermelon thumper. These two skills can only be taught
by a country boy. My daughter is getting pretty good at it, but it
takes years of sniffing/thumping practice.

The ONLY way to properly sniff a cantaloupe is by scratching the stem
wound and smelling the newly-exposed area. If it smells like a ripe
cantaloupe then it's ready.

Watermelon-thumping is a much more difficult skill to learn. Ideally,
the melon to be thumped should not be touching any other melons. Place
one hand lightly on one side of the melon and "thump" the opposite
side. The resultiing sound should have a low, bass tone, and the
vibrations should be felt in the other hand. Now this is a comparative
method, so several melons must be thumped in order to find the one with
the lowest and most resonating note. By the process of elimination you
will eventually find the perfect one.

BTW, this may be just a suthun thang, but do any of you put black pepper on your cantaloupe? How about salt on that watermelon?

Now look what you've gone and done Dick! Pepper and salt on melons -- even chocolate ice cream.

I would never put salt on cantaloupe (again), not unless I maybe
doubled up on the black pepper. People who would salt cantaloupe would
probably put sugar on their grits...

I'm a list shopper but still like walking round the whole store if I have time. Just call me confused hehehe

Billy, I can list shop okay, as long as I'm the one who made the list.
If my wife makes it, I get in the store and see "Flour". Now she uses
several types of flour - sometimes plain, sometimes self-rising and
even simolena on occasion. Call home, get specifics, and another item
or two she forgot.

"Canned milk". Call home again.

"Condensed or evaporated?" (Eagle Brand or Pet). Another item added in the process.

"Green beans". Sigh, another call home.

"Fresh or canned?"

I have learned to look over the list BEFORE I leave, and at the same
time, arrange it in the order of the aisle layout at the store. Saves
time, and minutes on the cellphone (which rings on the way home. "Don't
forget ice.")

Sue Sunshine wrote:

You are talking about food shopping. What about auto parts or cd's? Or even a home improvement store? How about a plant store or nursery? Huh Huh Huh? *grin*

Sheeesh!

You are right.

I DO love to wander around Home Depot.
And don't leave me unattended with money in a nursery ...
I do enjoy stopping in at Radio Shack and Auto Zone too.

I have never tried salt and pepper on melon, but I'm not opposed to trying. One of my favourite treats this time of year as the fresh strawberries appear...fresh cracked black pepper on strawberries, in a little Sambuca, throw in a match for a quick flambe and serve on vanilla ice cream. I thought my 80 year old grandfather was dying the first time he ate it -- turns out he was actually cooing. Who knew?

As for shopping...I'm with Dick, except when I have some extra cash in my pocket and some time to just mooch around, and then you'll find me down the other aisle with Jackie and thehairymob.

I put pepper on cantaloupe and salt on watermelon. I also put salt on grapefruit and in my beer. And I'm a watermelon thumper, but I wonder what a modern day produce manager would do if you asked to have a watermelon plugged and be allowed to taste the plug before buying or refusing a particular melon. That was the way we bought melons before the super market craze.

One time when I was school kid, maybe fourteen or fifteen, I happened to be near a vegetable stand when a truckload of watermelons arrived; two men in it, a driver and a co-pilot. The driver asked me if I wanted work, helping offload the watermelons, and I jumped at the chance. We formed a watermelon-tossing chain, several feet apart with me in the middle. The man on the truck threw melons at me at a regular interval and I, in turn, threw them to the man who stacked them on the ground at the vegetable stand. If I was a slplit second too slow is tossing mine before turning to catch the one in flight from the man on the truck, we had busted melon on the ground, and I was threatened with having to pay for them. We busted only a couple before I found my groove and did not have to buy them but I made a penny per melon and that truck held them by the hundreds. Those were the good old days.

Jim Woods
www.ultrasw.com/jwoods

I must confess to being a 'Jackie' and understand her logic. One tries to select the best product since we want to serve only that which is worthy of our loved ones. Since women tend to be more verbal than men, it is only natural to stop and exchange pleasantries when we meet friends in the store.

Well said Zada...

When I go to the store with my wife, I'm a shopper. When I go alone, I'm a buyer. I usually know what I want, and when I find it, I just drop it into the cart, and my task is finished.
When I go with my wife, I'm a shopper. She has her list and goes directly about the task of filling the list, always crossing off the items as she places it into the basket. She too will look at: Ingredients, price & freshness.
While all this is going on, I'm looking at the latest new gadgets the store is offering. Seems most food stores are now engaged in selling clothing and everything else that they can squeeze in. I think they put that stuff there for the husbands who wander around aimlessly and are prone to buy something that they feel they might need sometime in the future. And then when I put my intended purchase in the shopping cart, I get the third degree: "Do you really need that?" or "I thought you had one of those." All too often I just take the item out of the cart and the interrogation is finished. But if it's some sort of a tool that I can add to my collection, I will swear that it is a most needed item - something I've been seeking for a long time and now my life will be complete.
And so it goes. Marital bliss. I still get to wear the pants and she still gets to wash them.

When I had six kids at home I'd go to the grocery store and fill two carts, checking everything for the best price and buying in bulk. Our frig was always filled. My husband loved it. He called it a "happy refrigerator."

Now he wants his frig filled with food. But most of the time there are just two of us and we can't possibly eat all the food, let alone buy it, that he would like to see there.

It took me years to figure out how to shop or cook for two people. If a whole bunch of family happened to show up at supper time, I could feed them, no problem. But sometimes cooking and shopping for two is really a chore.

I agree, Carol, shopping for two can be a chore. To save money, I use my freezer whenever I can. Chicken on sale in family packs, gets divided, repackaged and frozen. Even extra loaves of bread wind up there.

I use a lot of canned tomatoes, so when the huge cans go on sale, I buy them. About 1/3 of a can is all I need for one dish, so I put the rest in two containers, and into the freezer they go.

Jim, I enjoyed your watermelon tale. Reminded me of a few times my mother and I went berry and bean picking. Didn't make much money, but it did teach me to appreciate produce in the stores and the process that gets it all there.