Friday, July 07, 2006

And Now for a Little Husband Torture

Yesterday I sent my husband a text message that had a list of things I needed him to pick up on his way home. Within that list was maxi pads, but I specified for him which kind by writing "Always Ultra Plus". (Note to Reader: If you feel you might be offended by talk of maxi pads and words like "wings" and "maximum protection", just stop reading now and click out. Yes.....I'm about to go there..... now.)

My husband and I have been married for eight years and to this day, this one little task has him breaking out in sweats. It's that "Please, I'll do anything but that!" kind of sweat. I normally buy my pads myself and try to buy several packs at once to avoid having to buy them for a couple months, but every once in a while, I'll run out of them and need some when I absolutely have no time to get to the store, with all the kids in tow.

So after I sent him the text message, I get a call back from him. I knew it was coming. He said he's fine with the requests for eggs and paper towels, but why maxi pads? We had gone to the grocery store as a family just the night before, why didn't I get them then? The answer, of course, was because I forgot. Sorry, but I really needed them. Today.

So later on yesterday at around 5:30 pm, while I was trying to update my blog and give August Sunshine something better to look at than a picture of Lindsay the Clown Whore, I get a call from the husband.

Him: "Um, yeah, I'm here at Walgreens and they don't have Always Ultra Plus."

Me: "What do you mean? They always have Always Ultra Plus."

Him: "No, they only have Always Fresh Maxi. I even asked the lady that works here where to find Always Ultra Plus, and she said this is all they have. So I'm getting you the Fresh Maxi."

Me: "No wait! Does it have wings? Is it the Super or Regular? I need Super with wings."

Him: (sighing in frustration) "Why didn't you just get these yesterday, I hate buying this stuff!"

Me: "I know, I forgot, but look at the shelf, do you see a little green package?"

Him: "They're all blue, no wait.....there's a green package that says Always Ultra Thin."

Me: "Yes! That's the one I want. Does it have wings and a picture of a diamond on it?"

Him: (Without him uttering a word, I can hear him thinking OMG!) "What?! No, it just says Ultra Thin, I don't know if it has wings. There's too many kinds of pads here, (he starts reading what he sees to me) Regular, Overnight, Maximum Protection, Lightdays.......I don't know what you want."

(By this time, I can totally see him getting confused and frustrated in front of the myriad display of feminine hygiene products. The fun was over, now I had to help him get out of there before he passed out.)

Me: "Look, what I really need is an Always package that says "Super" and "Wings" on it."

Him: (after a pause) "I found it, but it says "Flexi-Wings" is that okay?"

Me: "Yes."

Him: "And it's a blue package, is that okay?"

Me: "Yes."

Him: "Okay. I'm coming home now."

And that was the end of the conversation. He ended up bringing me a decent box of pads, Always Super with Flexi-Wings. I prefer the Ultra Thin kind, and I'm sure it was there in the store, but I felt bad for the guy and didn't want to torture him anymore. But I must say, if you ever want to test your man's loyalty towards you, this is the way to do it. Make him buy pads for you. When a man is willing to overcome his greatest fear and buy you maxi pads, that's love.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Amen to that.

He sounds like a good guy, but you had me convinced of that when I read that he went lipstick shopping for you at Sephora. Jeff has been known to pick up pads when requested, but I seriously doubt his abilities if I sent him into a makeup store.

sherni said...

Haha .. too cute. I've made my husband accompany me on pad buying trips but have yet to make him go alone. I'll have to try that out one day. I'm sure he'll love it =)

August Sunshine said...

Hehe, I agree with ST. The lipstick shopping at Sephora was very impressive, even more than the pads. For me, getting my husband to get pads was surprisingly easy, getting my brother to do it was an entirely different story. I think I just asked him to pick up whatever he saw first.

FBT said...

I hate wings, damn fiddly things and they don't work any better than the wingless variety. It's Kotex Super no-wings for me, which you cannot buy in the bumperpack size as apparently I am the only person in HK who is not a wings-fan.

August Sunshine said...

Oh, I disagree. I need wings.

Chic Mommy said...

I need wings too. I can't believe I survived without them.

Oh, and ladies, trust me, the lipstick shopping was easier for my husband than I made it sound. I think any competent second grader could've handled it. I had written for him the exact name of the lipsticks and where he could find them. He simply went to the mall, asked the info desk people where he could buy Loreal lipsticks (adding they were for his wife, not him) and they pointed him towards Sephora. Once inside Sephora, he promptly got a saleswoman to find the lipsticks for him, again mentioning they were for his wife, not him. It was pretty easy.

Other than that, my husband is just as lost at a women's cosmetics counter as I am at CompUSA.

And he's FAR from being perfect. I'd go into detail about all his flaws, but he reads my blog, and it wouldn't be too good for our marriage. (He might decide to seek revenge and start posting all my flaws in the comments section here and shut this site down with information overload.)But he should really give me a nice gift for all the good PR I'm giving him. ;)