Got Me There

We went shopping in Staples this afternoon, we needed a new shredder and some other stuff, chief among them, paper. It was time to buy our bi-annual ream of it. We walked into the store and I immediately headed off to the right side where the paper-like office supplies were. I looked along the wall and up and down every aisle (even though paper was not on the sign telling me what was down them.)

My wife suggested that I ask a kid in the red shirt where it was, but just like a man, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. On my second pass down the last aisle a woman who was arranging items on a shelf looked at me and asked, “Can I help you find something?” I can’t ask for directions, but I can’t lie and say no to someone offering help, so I said, “Where is the paper?” She looked at me with a twinkle in her eye and replied, “I hate to sound condescending, but (pointing to the wall on the other side of the store) do you see that big sign over there that says paper?” (the lettering was only about 4 foot high…) “Man,” I said, “It always used to be over on this side of the store, why did it get moved?” “Don’t tell me, I know. The paper is over there for the same reason all stores move stuff around, to keep the customer in the store longer while he searches for something, hoping for an impulse buy.”

About this time Donna walked up, so I said to the lady, “Or maybe it is like my wife who moves stuff around in the kitchen every six months just to make me feel inadequate. She’ll ask me to get her something, I’ll look in the spot I think it used to be, it won’t be there, and I have to ask her, so she gets to sigh that sigh that means, ‘Men are so helpless’.”

Without missing a beat, Donna says, “I never move anything, You don’t know where anything is at because you only come there to help me once every six months.”

Ouch.