My darling gave up cigarettes and took on pringles last year.

To begin with you should know that he is not the average man. Firstly, he is a darling. That much is indisputable. He is intelligent. Stoic. Handy. Loyal. Affectionate. Reliable. Even tempered. Handsome. Tall. Broad shouldered. Considerably above average.

And now, thanks to cheetos and winter inactivity, he is also has an above average waist measurement.

I mean this with all respect. From inactivity alone I too put on 3 or 4 pounds and am finding my dresses slightly more form fitting than I like. But because I am a woman I have been conditioned all my life to avoid snacking in order to preserve my figure. My husband was not indoctrinated with any such waist preservation strategy.

So I, his loyal wife and ally, voluntarily opted to spent a Sunday afternoon shopping with him for new pants.

I don’t even know how many pairs of jeans we looked at. It blurred. In a desperate bid to locate the correct waist size I sorted through more piles of clothes than I did during my entire last shopping trip to New York.

I was never quite sure what to say when he grew more despondent and my flattery became more transparent.

I was tired, he was grumpy.

The whole experience involved the level of frustration and despair usually reserved for bathing suit shopping forays, with the same root issue. There isn’t enough fabric where the damned fabric is really needed.

We finally found a pair and immediately fled the mall. As earnest in our need to escape as if we had just robbed the bank, we squealed out of the parking lot and hit the freeway home.

Sigh.

I am not suited to companion shopping. I am a solitary hunter. I want to be supportive, I do. But when I shop for myself it is incidental to my life. Or, more accurately, a constant component of my life. I have never HAD to shop because I always AM shopping. In fact it has been suggested that I could stop – silly really, why stop when I am so good at it? I now realize it was the freedom that made it fun.

My enthusiasm is limited to personal shopping.

 

I fear that if I am called upon again to join a shopping expedition that my favourite pastime – the casual potential shopping foray – could lose all its joy. Nothing kills pleasure so much as when the freedom to discover becomes a mandated need to locate.

And so, it becomes the age old dilemma of womankind; to support her family or to seek her own fulfillment.

I cannot risk of losing sight of my true passion in life.