After I delivered our oldest son in Virginia, I sent Jim to purchase some highly personal post-birth supplies for me. Jim had trouble locating them at our Base Exchange so he resorted to asking a staff member for help. Next thing he knew, the clerk made a store-wide announcement. “We have a Captain up here needing (very specific post-birth supplies).”
Jim was horrified but made sufficient hay telling this story over the decades that I think the experience has redeemed itself.
After our daughter was born in Arizona, I dispatched Jim to the Commissary with a grocery list that included “green bell peppers.” Jim returned with jalapeño peppers. “They’re green, and they’re peppers,” he contended.
In years since, I’ve avoided sending Jim to the market except during Covid when he’d make occasional visits in the hours of first light. He’d request I compose my lists in the order of the store aisles. If possible, I was to provide photos of empty containers for him to match.
Now in retirement, Jim has embraced the grocery store—well, Fred Meyer—where he can wander the electronics and garden supply while I shop. Even though I regularly lose him, I’ve find it best to release him into the store wilds rather than having him hover over my food selections because I’ve only had 43 years of marriage to figure this out on my own. Before cell phones, I’d occasionally get store checkers to make intercom pleas for Lost Jim to meet me up front.
When we visited Queens to help our daughter and son-in-law with their newborn, Jim was primed to run errands. When Daughter asked me to purchase her own post-birth supplies, Jim jumped in, eager to help. Daughter reiterated that she wanted Mom to cover this particular task.
“But I”m a dentist!” he pleaded, as if the medical association made the situation less awkward. Or maybe Daughter remembered Dad repeating his Base Exchange shopping story and didn’t want to become any part of that particular narrative.
“Nope,” she said, shutting that idea down.
We were both happy, however, to send Jim to the local market for some ingredients for my beef barley soup. The list included thyme, rosemary, and a white onion. Jim returned with two bottles of rosemary. He claimed the store had no thyme (it had three versions, turns out) and there was no way he was going to ask for help. In the struggle, he completely forgot the onion.
We assured Jim that the store carried thyme as it hits the all-star list of spices, enough that Simon and Garfunkel wrote a song about it. But Jim wasn’t convinced.
He returned to the grocery store nonetheless and in time found the thyme, a spice he’ll never sell short again. He can’t seem to remember, however, that you don’t pronounce the “h" in the word, which only adds to the confusion.
But progress, I remind myself. One step at a thyme.