I am a Ball of Incompetence Without My Wife

Let me chronicle the events of a Friday evening I spent with my wife to show you how useless I've become since I've been married.

We are not quite hungry yet so my wife decides she wants to do some shopping before we get dinner. Sounds fine. I go along with the plan. We are at the mall and I'm just doing whatever she tells me to do. I'm on the phone all this time talking to my buddy and following her like a faithful little puppy.

After she's done she tells me to hang up the phone. She puts three items in my arms: a pair of jeans, a pair of shoes, and a jacket she picked out for me. She stuffs three coupons in hand and tells me, "Wait in line and pay for this while I go to pick up the purse I put on hold." I nod like a good husband and she gallops off into the distance.

Let me give you a bit of background about my wife before I go on any further:

She is a avid bargain hunter. She has a way to get every discount and coupon out there in the world to make sure we do not pay full price for anything. I no longer dare to purchase anything without first consulting her because I'll get the, "Don't you know I have a coupon for this? You should ask me before you decide to buy anything." I once bought a flashlight from OSH and she flipped out, "I have coupon! I'm returning this. This flashlight is too expensive." It's a flashlight for godsake! She returned it and bought me a wife-approved flashlight. At this point I don't even buy gum without her approval.

Back to the main storyline.

The line is long and I'm bored out of my mind so I decide to read the coupons. The coupons reads, "30% off any one item". Three coupons for three items - makes sense, but then I noticed that all three coupons have the same UPC code. She got these coupons from the Internet. She just printed three copies of the same coupon. Oh god, my wife made a mistake. I think to myself, "I know how these things work. Once the UPC code is scanned, the computer system will mark that coupon as used and you will no longer be able to reuse it." At least, that's what I would do if I were to write a software system to manage these things.

My wife made a mistake. No problemo. I'll call her to ask her which of the items she would prefer to buy since I've pretty much convince myself that you can only buy one item with the coupons. But of course she doesn't pick up her phone. She probably left it on silent mode to test me.

As I edge closer to the front of the line, I try to choose which one of the three items she would choose if she can only have one. I immediately eliminate the jacket because it is for me. So is it the shoes or the jeans? I cycle back and forth between them so many times that my head hurts.

I'm screwed. I know I'll pick the wrong one and she'll lecture me about how I should have waited until she got back. I'm totally stressed out by this predicament. I look up in frustration and I see my wife in the distance. Thank god, I'm off the hook.

She meets me at the front of the line and I'm feeling smart because of the problem I discovered with the coupons. I tell her about it and she just nonchalantly tells me to pay for each of them separately.

Ok, good point. But A-HA! The UPC codes are the same! Top that honey!

She just calmly says, "Their systems are not smart enough to catch stuff like this. Trust me I've done many times before. We'll be fine."

Well, she's friggin Nostradamus. We got in line three times, paid for each item separately, and got all three items for 30% off. She was right on all counts and I'm feeling like a complete retard.

At this point we are both hungry so we decide to get some food. The place we chose can be reach either via freeway or surface streets. We both knew the way via the freeway, but I felt adventurous and decided to take surface streets which we both didn't know as well, but it shouldn't be too much of a problem. I told my wife I know the general directions so we'll be ok.

Boy was I wrong. I wander around surface streets for almost 20 minutes jumping back and forth between being lost and knowing where I was going:

I started out heading north on Milpitas Blvd. I'm pretty certain that this was the street that took us to the restaurant, but the farther I went north that less sure I was until I saw a cross street I was vaguely familiar with. I think we passed the restaurant and it wasn't on Milpitas Blvd as I orginally thought so I made a left onto the cross street and headed west for about 5 minutes until my wife realizes we are exactly where we started about 20 minutes ago. I'm feeling like a retard again. I gave up on the surface streets and took the freeway to get to the restaurant.

After we exit the freeway and arrive at the intersection where the restaurant is located at I see my wife looks into the distance. She's wearing a grin that goes from ear to ear. I asked her, "What's so funny, honey?" She doesn't say anything. She just continues staring into the distance. I ask her again, "What's so funny, honey?" She still doesn't say anything.

I look to see what she's looking at.

It's a street sign.

It's labeled, "Milpitas Blvd".

I'm a retard.

We both burst into laughter and a thought crosses my mind...

The longer a man is married the more diminished is his ability to be competent at anything.