Andrews Rants

EVERYTHING 7 DOLLA

My Wife, who is the sweetest person who I know in the entire world, can sometimes show a mean streak that is quite uncharacteristic. Perhaps it’s because she has to put up with my caustic personality on a daily basis that she occasionally will mentally torture a complete stranger. It must be her way of venting all that pent up rage she accumulates while dealing with my inane antics. One occasion comes to mind specifically. She had decided that she wanted to go shopping and as a reward I was allowed to go along. In other words, I was pack labor to carry bags and packages. We had been through several stores and had spent over an hour looking at new clothing without actually buying anything. Now this is a little off the point but why is it men are expected to go along on these little jaunts and patiently wait around for hours while every item on a sale rack, meaning the whole store is fingered or tried on. We men are expected to have a nice comment about every possible ensemble combination and somehow find a non-offensive answer to that question, "Does this make me look fat, or my butt look big?" Rather than screaming out, "I am blind, I can’t see!" and groping madly for the exit door, I have developed an answer that usually works. I say, "If it makes you happy it makes me happy". This, intermixed with grunts and nods, seems to work well. They really don’t want our opinion and never notice an ambiguous grunt assigning whatever meaning to it that they wish. Stores realize that this is the situation. They have those little hard prison benches scattered outside the dressing rooms and around the store. On them you will find grown men hunched over circles under their eyes holding their wife’s purse while she is trying on a new outfit. If you happen to be by the dressing room you have the added bonus of garnering evil glares from all the females entering there. They assume you are waiting for a fleeting chance to see some skin. Like you are some weird pervert rather than a man trying to make his wife happy by enduring this ordeal. I mean what normal heterosexual male would voluntarily spend an hour in the bra section of Wal Mart unless he was with his wife? An unattached man, or one who is better than I, escaping these situations would make a beeline for sporting goods or electronics. Women expect us to go shopping with them because their girlfriends are competition. They all start out with the best intentions, shopping with the girls, but soon it devolves into those catty little situations where it becomes who is the skinniest or looks the best in a revealing outfit and the entire trip is ruined. With us they get a bag carrier and a captive "yes man" to reinforce their decisions. But the situation is not reciprocal. If you want to go to a hardware store and get a new tool, after 3 minutes the complaints start. My feet hurt, how long is this going to take? have you found what you need yet?, what do you need that for?, do we really need that?, can we go yet?, I have to use the restroom and the one here is filthy, and so on. I have seen my wife shop non-stop for 6 hours once while on vacation but somehow she cannot manage 3 minutes in Lowe’s. God forbid you run in while they wait in the car. Even if you only take ten minutes from start to finish they have gotten hot and irritated, even with the air conditioning on and you will pay for it for the rest of the evening.

Anyway on this particular shopping trip my wife had finally drug me into a store called Everything 7 Dollars. There was a small middle-aged Asian man behind the cash register with a sign that said NO TAKE CHECK OR CREDIT CARD. Evidentially he only accepted cash and had no grasp of proper grammar. My wife dived into the clothing racks like an Olympic swimmer and soon emerged with a sweater and waved it at the little Asian man and said, "How much is this?", because nothing in the store was marked. I can only assume that she thought it was like a Dollar General Store where everything wasn’t a dollar but just low priced. The little man harrumphed and looked put out that he had to put down his Chinese newspaper and said, "it 7 dolla". Satisfied with the price my wife went back to shopping. Next she held up a blouse from the back of the store and yoo-hooed the little man while waiving the blouse and said, "how much?". Exasperated the little Chinese man threw down the paper and yelled back, "IT SEVEN DOLLA!". Taken back by his attitude my wife’s face hardened and I just watched on from the sidelines thinking, "Buddy, you just screwed up". Once again this time with a fake innocent smile on her face my wife requested a price on an item. The little man now no longer attempting to read shouted, "Lady, evething in stoor seven dolla!". My wife continued this several more times the situation almost comical her asking prices the little man getting angrier and angrier his little black goatee quivering with anger. She came up to the register with an armload of items and he retreated behind the safety of the cash register. My wife began to quiz him on the prices of items she had brought up. "Surely, this isn’t seven dollars it's much too nice" or "This has to be more than 7 dollars". On each one the little Asian man now answered in a straight monotone "7 Dolla", "7 Dolla", "7 Dolla". Finally he freaked and began to scream, "Lady, you crazy everything in stoor seven dolla!, eveything everywhere all seven dolla!" He was so mad he was shaking and spit globs were shot-gunning from his mouth as he yelled. Slamming his little fist on the counter he screamed, "Get out my stoor! Get out now!" "Eveything 7 dolla! No come back crazy lady!". Laughing we exited the store and returned home. Brooke claimed that she felt much better and that getting the little man that mad was fun. She knew it was wrong and she shouldn’t have done it but it was so much fun she claimed. Even today we will nudge each other in similar situations and say, "7 dolla".