Cabernet, chocolate and touches of Autumn…what more did we need?

I’m so busy grousing about my children, that I never noticed until the other day what a bunch of spoiled Prima Donnas my girlfriends are.

I invited a few ladies over on Friday afternoon for some Cab and Gab. I was pretty impressed with myself because I had gone out earlier in the day and bought some giant mums, pumpkins and acorns, so the house was looking rather festive. Another friend brought chocolate – between that, the fall flourishes and the wine we had everything we needed…or so I thought.

Predictably, 20 minutes or 20 sips in, whichever came first, one of the gals needed to potty. We are all old friends, so she just held up her hands in our official “hold the story” hand signal and bolted off for the bathroom.  She was back in a flash.

“Are you out of toilet paper again?”

As I said, we are really old friends, so many of the perfunctory steps that one might expect to see in more  fledgling relationships were skipped right over – steps such as:

1. Inquiring where I kept the spare rolls (she knows) and
2. Did I mind if she searched the cabinets? (she already did) or
3. Did I keep back-up supplies elsewhere in the home?  (Snort – she knew better).

Like any excellent hostess I re-directed her to a perfectly good box of Kleenex and sent her tinkling away merrily.

But, OMG, I had to hear about it all afternoon – each and every time one of my friends felt the urge (frequently).

It wasn’t long before this led to a conversation about Walmart’s new grocery purchasing solution for busy, lazy and/or agoraphobic homemakers. This was all news to me. In fact, if I hadn’t initiated this little soirée myself, I would swear it was some type of a planned intervention.

As most of you know, I’m a tragically inept grocery shopper. For over 30 years now, I have wandered up and down the aisles list-less and listless seeking inspiration from the shelves. It’s been a source of unresolved marital disharmony for over 3 decades. Jimmy has tried to help by patiently explaining professional restaurant methods such as “build to’s” and “par levels,” but I find his suggestions demeaning and condescending and tend to dig my heels in even harder.

Lo and behold, who would’ve ever believed Walmart would step in with the solution?  Apparently, they’ve come up with one more thing in the world I can do from the bathtub – Grocery shop. That’s right – I just did all of next week’s grocery shopping at Walmart online from the comfort and convenience of my tub.

http://grocery.walmart.com/usd-estore/m/home.jsp

Instead of meandering down the aisles sans list, I scrolled down the columns of pretty pictures of foods that I buy – on my iPad. And no more standing around in the aisles, holding up traffic while I try to remember if I already have an item on hand. At one point I got out of the tub, wrapped a towel around myself and dripped into the utility room to see if we had clothes washing pods (we actually did).

When I was done, I entered my credit card information and selected my pick up time. All I have to do now is show up at the designated time tomorrow and pick up the goods. I selected a time that corresponded with Tommy’s arrival home from school so he can unload everything from my car.

If this all plays out the way it’s supposed to, I may barely be involved at all.

What’s even more exciting – I forgot the toilet paper again and didn’t even realize it until I was writing this piece. Fortunately, they have an editing feature. There’s an allotted amount of time after you place your order to make changes and corrections. You can add anything you forgot or even delete your spontaneous and regrettable impulses.

Do-overs? Edits? Self-censorship? Now it’s just starting to sound like productive and responsible Journalism – that I can definitely get behind. From my bathtub.