Here is something Paul cannot master, no matter how many times we have calm and reasonable discussions about it: when to buy grapes, and how many of them to buy.
If they are awesome grapes, firm and with that frosty opaque look, and they are at a good price per pound (say, $1.29), he should buy LOTS. If they are crappy grapes, soft and with sour, already wrinkling skins, and they are at a bad price per pound (say, $2.79), he should buy NONE. Of course, there are many tricky places in between these two situations. There are awesome grapes at the high price end, and there are crappy ones at the low price end, and there are pretty good ones at the sort of high end, and there are decent ones at the sort of low end, etc.
So before he goes to the grocery store, I try to explain the continuum once again. Good grapes don’t have to be cheap, but he should buy smaller quantities as they get more expensive. Cheap grapes don’t have to be as good as expensive grapes, but we won’t eat many if they’re not good.
He comes home from the store with gross, browning, wrinkled grapes at $3.19 a pound. At least he only bought a pound and a half of them (I would not have put it past him to buy five pounds, remembering the “we eat a lot of grapes” but not having room in his brain for the “not if they suck”), but still: $5 worth of grapes? When they’re no good? That’s a lot of money on bad grapes.
If I’d done the shopping and the grapes were $3.19 a pound, I would have bought them only if they were glorious, perfect grapes–and even then, I would have bought about half a pound of them, just to tide us over; and in certain moods I would have bought not one single grape, on the principle that grapes should not be $3.19 a pound. In any case, at $3.19 a pound, anything less than perfect puts us in the No Grapes shaded area of the graph.
I realize this is a significantly more complicated situation than the “get out a fresh roll of toilet paper when the old one is getting close to being used up” one (which he has also failed to master). I don’t expect him to make exactly the same call I would make, to the dollar or to the pound, and it would be ridiculously controlling if I did, especially because sometimes he’s right where I would have been wrong: he comes home with 3 pounds of expensive grapes that turn out to be worth every single penny because of their amazing deliciousness, and in fact prove that I am in some cases overly thrifty to the point of missing out on the joys of life.
But I think that in general, he should be able to understand that “expensive” and “yucky” belong on one end of the grapes graph, and “cheap” and “perfect” belong on the other end, and that things change gradually as you move around within the range of possibilities. Balances tip. Judgments must be made. Sometimes grapes are purchased and sometimes they are not. Sometimes quantities are large and sometimes small.
Seven paragraphs on grapes? Well, I meant to tie it in with his overall inability to make shopping decisions (buying chips not on sale and from the most expensive store, buying things without even looking at prices, etc.), but I seem to have run out of steam.
well I enjoyed 7 paragraphs on grapes! This is where I am lucky, T is really good at this stuff, probably better than I am in some cases. I just tell him what I want. I can tell him something like the grape thing and he’ll figure it out. He’s just good at math too.
Now I want grapes.
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This is one of the most hilarious things I’ve read all day, swear to God. From the first sentence, I was positively giddy, because somehow I knew you were going to ramble on about the merits and detractions of grape purchasing, and I knew, I JUST KNEW, that I would be entirely on board.
And this is why we blog. Sometimes you just need to write 7 paragraphs on grapes.
This is why I do all of the grocery shopping. I just got 4 pounds of strawberries…for $5!
Oh, this is where I admit that I am a total dunce when it comes to picking out produce of any sort; except apples, I’m down with the apples. I enjoyed reading your thoughts on grapes. Maybe you could do something of a photo essay next time, to more clearly illustrate your scale of grape acceptability. I’m totally serious; the produce challenged among us would be grateful!
he he he!!!
oh, that was great! i’m glad you wrote about grapes for 7 paragraphs- i found it terribly amusing!!
(my husband doesn’t know the finer points of produce buying either)
thanks for the laugh!!
I’m with Shannon – the scale at our house is all about strawberries. If I were to write it out, it would have to have a calendar segment with prices vs. time of year.
So funny.
Jen (1st Jen): He’s good at math, but bad with VALUE. He also struggles with the “just because we want it doesn’t mean we immediately buy it” concept.
Jen (2nd Jen): It seems risky to tell a nearly-full-term pregnant woman that her husband is not irritating or that he should be cut some slack. And when the arguments revolve around points such as that grocery shopping for the family is the woman’s responsibility, or that a man should be praised for dimly realizing even the most basic facts about his own children, or that “the breadwinner” gets bonus points for doing anything at all, it seems more like rescuing a meal away from a lionness and then lying down nearby looking all soft and meaty. It is exactly because he is a co-parent and not the babysitter that I expect him to be competent.
Nowheymama: Strawberries are a good scale at our house, too, but, um, I couldn’t mention them because Paul is better than I am with that one. He seems to come home with excellent strawberries at excellent prices, and he buys the exact number we need so that we are eating the very last strawberry just as it is starting to lean toward iffy.
there are some things men just don’t get and grocery store econ is one of them!
it’s equally as frustrating when hubs is working on a project and doesn’t think it thru to the end as i’ve asked him to. He ends up needing a handful of things by the end that could have been taken care of in the beginning. i absolutely hate it when he asks me to make one of the many runs out to (home depot/adavanced auto/etc) to pick something up knowing good and damn well I will not ge the right thing.
i love green grapes! :)
Wow, Jen2, I don’t really know what to say. It seems like you’re bringing a lot of your own issues to the table here, and what was once lighthearted is now…well, it’s weird. I wish you hadn’t said that, and for the record, hoo boy, do I disagree with you, as your arguments seem terribly…old fashioned and um, misogynistic in a twisty sort of way.
Wow.
Oh man, I can relate!! lol!!
We go through a ton of grapes here. I’m wondering why do they have to be so darn expense when they aren’t on sale! Its crazy, kinda like they know you have to buy them anyways! I couldn’t imainge a week without grapes around here.
Oh, and I did the same thing shortly after I had my latest baby. Totally ripped into my dh for spending way too much money on DVDs when I sent him to the store for diapers and milk! Guys!
This is really funny to me as my husband seems not to understand the grape continuum either. Nor any vegetable continuum, for that matter.
Oh, this is just awesome.
The problem is much worse at my house. I call it the “Price is Right” theory. He CANNOT accurately evaluate an appropriate retail price without going over.
It’s like he just BELIEVES the store when they say grapes should be $3.19 per lb.
What is it with men and the inability to choose produce?
Seven paragraphs about grapes and your husband are highly amusing whereas my husband’s own deficiencies are just plain irritating.
This post is all kinds of awesome. I’m afraid I’m guilty of not paying enough attention to price (quality, yes), but we do try to buy things more or less in season. My husband is an awesome produce picker! The only problem is he buys stuff that he likes the idea of and then forgets it and it rots in the fridge.
This is so funny. We have the strawberry problem too, but it’s mostly because I always crave strawberries when I’m pregnant and he’s afraid to come home from the store without them. So he always buys them, even if they’re crappy. He doesn’t get it that it’s OKAY to not pay five dollars for a box of mushy furry berries.