Shopping

Okay, so as some of you may have guessed, I will be a father come January. Never in my wildest dreams did I believe I would be in this position. But, I find myself excited and nervous at the same time. So as part of the preparations, my wife and I went and registered at one of those baby warehouse establishments. Upon arriving there, I noticed several soon to be fathers accompanied their wives so I felt somewhat at ease knowing that I was not the only male forced out of a Sunday afternoon filled with beer, pizza, football and belching.

The first thing that happens is the registration where all manner of information is extracted by a woman who is well past her prime and on the verge of the eternal sleep. I half expected her to take our fingerprints...Luckily she did not. After that process, we were given a shopping gun to zap all items that expectant mothers need. I looked at this list of requirements and began to laugh at the sheer simplicity of their scheme. This list was definitely targeted at first time mothers and included well over 100 items. Now, I am no expert, but given the first 6 months of an infants life is spent sleeping, eating, pooping, etc., do we really need all this material? Nonetheless, we ambled on through the maze of breast pumps, diapers, cribs, strollers...then arriving at the dreaded diaper aisle. As I made my way to that aisle I noticed another young couple looking at the various diaper pails. The father to be looked at me briefly and we exchanged the look of all men who are shopping with their wives (yes ladies, even though we go begrudgingly we would rather be somewhere else doing anything else but shopping). I made a comment about trying to intelligently select the most appropriate diaper pail and the father to be smiled knowing exactly what I meant. His wife gave me a brief smile probably recognizing our dismay at being there and the led him down another aisle.

After two hours we were done. Tired and hungry we made our way to the nearest eatery and then home. Upon our arrival home, my wife went online to review the registry and began adding more items to the already monstrous list. After that she stated we should have selected some clothing. I sighed knowing this was not going to be my day. Turns out she used the power of technology and began shopping at light speed at one of the popular apparel stores. Within ten minutes she cranked out an impressive $300 tally. What on earth could a newborn possibly need to wear other than diapers I wondered. I made the mistake of saying this out loud and even though my wife was on a different floor, she heard every word and then summoned me to the computer so she could show me everything she purchased.

Ah well, I never did get to see the games....