THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, May 14, 1995 TAG: 9505100054
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K1 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: HE SAID, SHE SAID
SOURCE: KERRY DOUGHERTY & DAVE ADDIS
LENGTH: Medium: 100 lines
DAVE SAYS:
Kerry, I need your help. Again.
I'm beginning to develop a phobia of grocery stores. I get the shakes walking through the electric-eye door, and by the time I clear the bag-boy my palms are clammy.
It's not the shopping, which I really don't mind. I like to cook a bit, and though I have more nerve than skill in front of a stove, I don't mind trying a little exotica in the kitchen. (Get your mind out of the gutter, Kerry . . . I said exotica. That other word doesn't show up much in the kitchen, except for that scene with Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger in ``9 1/2 Weeks.'')
Anyway, the problem is the checkout clerks. Each and every one of them is a woman, and they all seem to have been taught their trade by refugees of the old East German border guard.
To a female clerk, any guy with a grocery order more complex than a bag of Doritos and a six-pack of Bud is suspect.
I tried to buy some leeks the other day. It led to this:
Clerk: ``What's this?''
Me: ``Uh, it's a leek.''
Clerk: ``I know what it is. But what are you doing with it?''
By now, two other clerks and three women with carts backed up behind me were leaning our way, frowning.
Me: ``Well, uh, I'm going to chop it up and sautee it with some garlic and butter and a little white wine, and then I'll cook some scallops in it. Then I'll pour it all over some steamed rice. With saffron.''
Things got really silent. Dark, skeptical glances passed among them. I smelled trouble. The only way out was a lie.
Me: ``OK, OK, I'm busted. My fiance sent me here to buy that thing. I wouldn't even have known what it was - I had to ask the guy back in produce. Honest, the only thing I ever buy in here for myself is Budweiser. And Doritos. Cool Ranch Doritos.''
They all exhaled, smirked, and the clerk took my check. But she shot me one of those ``Don't-try-that-again'' looks, and I saw her copy my driver's license number onto a pad as I was leaving.
I felt like John Doe No. 2.
What is it with you guys, Kerry? For years y'all have been moaning about how men are useless slugs in the kitchen. Now a few of us try to break the mold and our reward is to be terrorized in the checkout line.
I said at the top that I need your help, and here's what you can do: Next time I go to the store, will you please write out my list in a nice feminine handwriting so I can show it to the clerk? Sorta like a hall pass, or a note from my mom?
After that outburst over the leeks, I'm afraid that if I try to buy an avocado I'll be dragged back into the storage room, strip-searched, and turned over to Janet Reno.
KERRY SAYS:
Dave, there could be several explanations for the interrogation you received in the check out line.
But no doubt your first problem was leeks.
Face it, Dave, you were showing off. No one really knows what they are or what to do with them.
I can see it now. Single guy, shopping without screaming kids in the basket (you probably were roaming around with one of those little hand-held plastic numbers, weren't you?). Then you rub everyone's nose in it by buying a vegetable - at least I think it's a vegetable - that is vaguely Middle Eastern or Romanian in origin. Why not just buy an onion, Dave? A nice, Southern Vidalia onion would work just as well and keep the money in the American agricultural economy.
Leeks aside, there was something else going on here and I'm surprised you haven't noticed it before.
Women do most of the grocery shopping in America, and the cooking, too. The few men who meander into a supermarket just slow us down when they venture out of the beer or potato chip aisle.
Because they are relative strangers to supermarkets they tend to walk slowly, with a look of awe on their faces when they first realize there are 3,200 different kinds of Kellogg cereals on the shelves.
When we send men to the grocery store, they inevitably come home with the wrong stuff. That clerk knew your fiance had not sent you to the store for leeks. Limes, beets, maybe pig's feet, but definitely not leeks. She was just trying to rescue Kay's dinner.
Most women I know have given up ever asking a man to pick up an item or two at the grocery store.
I ask my husband to pick up some flour and what do I get? Self-rising flour (``I figured it was easier to use.'') Ask him to pick up some fish and I get Mrs. Paul's Cod Fingers (``They're neater.'')
I know, I know, some guys do cook. But usually they do it outside, and that's good.
My husband tried indoor cooking one night a few years ago and Steve's Stir Fried Vegetables wound up costing us $53 in exotic groceries (I still have a giant bottle of peanut oil and a big knob of frozen ginger root if anyone wants it). It took two weeks to clean up the mess and another month to get the aroma out of the curtains.
Dave, there are places men ought not to venture. The supermarket is one of them - with or without a note. But if you must, keep moving and buy vegetables you can trust. by CNB