Alphabobnoxious

This may come as a complete shock to my readers, but I can sometimes be a little over-the-top. Trying is another word that has been used to describe me before. My wife came up with a new one this morning, but I have yet to discover it!

I attempted to wake her up. I jiggled the bed. I shook her. Then I jiggled both her and the bed. I pulled on her blankets. I even tickled her a little, all the while chanting, "Honey. Baby. Shnookie. Honey. Baby Shnookie..."

"I'm thinking of a word to describe you right now," she said. Her voice had a menacing edge to it. "It starts with a--"

"A!" I said quickly. "You're word is adorable! Right? Or perhaps audacious? With a touch of awesome?"

No and no. I quickly turned this into an alphabet game, creating a word to describe me with every letter of the alphabet.

Bumbling, or bubbly? Cute? Dependable? Effervescent? Fun? Grandiloquent? Happy, or humorous? Irrepressible? Jovial? Knowledgeable? Loquacious?

"Loquacious certainly works," she said, "but you haven't gotten the letter or the word right. I see what you're doing. Feel free to stop any time." She hid under her blanket as I continued.

Marvelous, or moronic? Probably marvelous. Naturally sweet? Obnoxious? Practical? Quick-witted? Remarkable? Stubborn? Tenacious? Unyielding? Vivacious? Wacky? Xquisite? (Yeah, I cheated!) Youthful? Zoostunder? (Not a word, but I explained to her that's what mortals would call me. If I were a god. If.)

She's got some nerve! She invited me to leave, immediately, and started her own list, as she threw pillows at me.

Annoying! Bothersome! Cretin! Dork!

I didn't hear what was next. I exited quickly. My wife is good with words too.

Dinner Planning Made Easy

When I was younger, weekends were all about fishing, partying, eating and doing wild and crazy things! Now that I'm older, my weekends have turned into planning, laundry, cleaning and grocery store runs.

I like to think of myself as a professional grocery store shopper. I plan out my weekly meals (with my wife's help, of course!). As you can see from the diagram below, a lot of thought goes into the creation of a weekly menu at my house.

A glimpse into the insanity of genius, or something like that!

I diligently go through my kitchen as I make my grocery list to make sure I don't purchase anything I don't already have.

Like rice. One week, following my grocery run, I discovered I had three bags of rice! And I had just purchased another bag! Seriously, four 2 pound bags of rice might be just a little over the top. But I digress...

I list. I count. I mark. I strike through some items. I make notes on other items. I would take a picture of a typical grocery list, but viewings of my lists have cause textual blindness in the viewers. Don't ask. It's not pretty.

Regardless, I've been known to rewrite one list as many as four times. Even then, something always seems to get left off or forgotten.

I must admit that if grocery shopping was an Olympic sport, I probably wouldn't even qualify.

I still don't organize my shopping by sales, stores and coupons. My wife won't let me. She says five hours is too long for a single grocery run. Pure silliness!

List-itis

Like most of us, I suffer from many maladies. Some of them are real, but a large majority of them, I've been led to believe, probably are not.

During my youth, for example, I suffered debilitating, nearly fatal, food allergies to anything that could be misconstrued as healthy. Boy, that was rough period of my life!

My latest malady, however, seems to go in a different direction entirely. It seems I suffer from a chronic case of needtamaykalistitis.

This disease has managed to integrate itself into almost every aspect of my life. On my iPhone alone I have lists of potential blog posts, songs I want to download, books I want to purchase, my ongoing Christmas list, my gluten ingredient list and my 'to get' list for items I need from my little pharmacy.

On my computer, I have a running, continual list of all the novels I've read since my teen years. Yes. It's long. I have a notebook with a numbered list of countries that have viewed Fuzzy, Black Dogs. (It's 62, in case you're wondering.)

My strange need for lists has seeped into other areas of my life as well. The first thing I do upon arriving at work? I make a list, of course. There are few things as gratifying as a checked off list of things to do.

I can't even walk into a grocery store without a list in hand. There's no telling what would come home if I didn't have my list.

My wife recently sent me to the store for three items. I pulled out my ever present pen and began to write them down, but she quickly stopped me.

"You don't need a list for three items," my wife said. "Butter, baked beans and bedding. Three things. Remember B-B-B. You can do this! Butter, beans, bedding!"

I went to the store chanting butter, beans and bedding. Butter, beans and bedding. I grabbed a cart. Butter, beans, bedding. I rolled into the store. Butter, beans, bedding.

Imagine my surprise when I arrived home with butter beans, beer and bacon nestled innocently in my grocery bag! My cashier must have switched bags on me. Pretty sneaky.

I think the lists are due to the massive amounts of knowledge I've crammed into my brain. By writing down the nonessential things, I make sure there's room to cram more important things.

My wife, being the awesome woman she is, seems to have figured this out as well. That would explain the "butter beans bedding" text I received on my second trip to the store.