Shopping

I am not a good shopper. When I need something, I want to get in and out. However, I really like shopping for tools. Tools are fun. My father, and every other man I have ever known has always said, "There is nothing like having the right tool for the job." This is so true. Tools are necessary for a man like myself. I love shops tools and working on things. I really like having tools. I like having my shop in order and standing next to my workbench, drinking beer, and surveying my tool kingdom.

Maternity clothes are like tools. You need to have them to do the job of being pregnant. As a pregnant woman, there is no way you are going to be able to wear your normal clothes during this pregnant time. If you are pregnant with triplets, your normal clothes will become useless really quick. The time came around here to get some tools. Carrie needed some maternity clothes.

Carrie is extremely bad at shopping. When we got together and I found out that she hated shopping, this was a huge selling point for me. Have you ever seen a guy whose wife really likes shopping? He is the guy that is sitting on the bench at the mall. Maybe he has a cup of coffee. Maybe he has some candy or some food from the food court. You can easily spot a man like this. He looks beat down. He is sitting on that bench knowing full well that his wife is racking up the credit card debt on items she will no doubt bury in her closet after wearing once. Often times, the kid or kids will be hanging out with Dad if they are small. If they are old enough they are running around spending money themselves. This is a hurt, broken man. He just stares at his feet and waits until he can go home and watch television.

Fortunately, I do not have this problem. Carrie is awesome. She hates stores. She hates dressing rooms. She does not like to browse. When she needs something, she runs in and gets it, and runs out. Often times, I can sit in the car and wait. I think I actually enjoy and tolerate shopping more than she does.

Yesterday was different. Since she is growing by the day, we don't know what size she is. We decided to go to a couple of places and check out the maternity clothes. I was happy to go. I wanted to contribute and make sure she had the right tools for the job. The first place we went to was totally lame. There was nothing hip or cool about these clothes at all.

Me: How about this shirt?

I was holding up some weird flower print loud shirt type blouse.

Carrie: NO! That looks like an old lady would wear it.

It was true. I was amazed at the geriatric flair that all the clothes seemed to have. Old women are rarely pregnant. Why design pregnant clothes for them? I have nothing against old women by the way. Many of them are snappy, downright stylish dressers. Old women wouldn't have liked these clothes either.

While at this store, I discovered that maternity pants are weird. They look like regular pants, but they have this huge elastic kinda stretchy thing around the top that is suppose to fit around the woman's belly I guess. They don't look comfortable at all. In fact, they sort of look like something you would carry a bowling ball around in. You could tie up that elastic part, drop a bowling ball in it, and use the legs as the handle. Anyhow, nothing at this store was very cool, so we went somewhere else.

Austin is a large town with lots of stores. There is one store that Carrie wanted to visit that supposedly had some good deals on maternity clothes. I won't mention names, but it had Navy and Old in the name. There are lots of these stores in town at various malls, strip centers, ect. However, the only store in this particular chain that carried maternity clothes was clear outside of town in Bee Caves. That was okay with me. It was a nice day for a drive. After we left the store with the completely lame clothes, we went down to this place. I found it hard to believe that they only had maternity clothes at this one branch.

They had clothes for a reasonable price. We picked out some shirts, tank tops, and couple of dresses. Now for pants. There is one particular size that pregnant women seem to be. This was the size that we figured out that Carrie needed. She tried on one size bigger.

Me: Looks great!

Carrie: They are too big.

Me: Not for long.

Oops.

We ended up getting the shirts. Pants will have to be ordered online.

We had an incident during check-out.

Some young girl was working the register.

The total was $47.58

Carrie handed the girl $50.60 cash

The girl handed Carrie back $2.78

Wow.

Carrie: I gave you $50.60

Girl stares at her computer. Hoping for help.

Carrie: You owe me $3.02

I went and and sat on a bench by the door. I figured that if Carrie got agitated enough, she would tell this girl exactly how dumb she was and what exactly she could do with her change.

I braced for the worst.

Carrie: Why would I give you change in order to get back a bunch of change?

Girl continues to look to the machine for the answer.

Change counting is a lost art.

Carrie: You owe me $3.02.

It was at this point, that a MANAGER had to come over and assist this girl in coming up with the correct change.

Carrie got her $3.02 and we left without further incident.

On most mornings Carrie comes into the kitchen after getting dressed and says:

Carrie: Does this look stupid?

Now, even if I really thought that it looked stupid, why would I ever in any kind of situation on any planet tell her that?

Telling your pregnant wife that she looks stupid sounds like just about the dumbest thing you can say.

Here are some other things to avoid?

"Can you stop your moaning? You're uncomfortable I get it."

"I'm really going to need you to start making sense."

"You got yourself into this."

"Are you just going to lay there all day?"

"I have to drink this much to deal with you."

If you currently have a pregnant wife, avoiding saying these things out loud.

I do try and survey the clothing and I am very honest. Personally, I always think Carrie looks beautiful. I always tell her that. She doesn't always believe me. Right now, she looks more beautiful than ever.