How to Survive Shopping with a Woman

Life was different back when early humanoids had big ass sloped foreheads and the height of human achievement was a pointy stick. It would be roughly 40,000 years until the first Piggly Wiggly opened so folks mostly wandered around looking for shit to eat on the ground and poking animals with sticks. Women usually stayed back in the cave while the men hunted, on account of the women usually being pregnant. Birth control methods like pulling out wouldn’t be invented for quite some time. Hunting is 1% something happening and 99% drinking beer while making jokes about the new guy’s sexuality. Neanderthals were no different. Between saber tooth tiger attacks and guys getting lost and being too proud to stop and ask for directions; the women folk could get pretty hungry waiting for the men to come back with a yak, so they became expert foragers. By expert foragers, I mean wandering around looking for shit to eat on the ground.

There were some Cro-Magnon men who were planning on opening a book store that had a whole section devoted to poisonous plants, but they were waiting for someone to invent paper. In the meantime, when the women found something that looked edible they would play rock, leaf, stick to see who would eat it first. On many levels going grocery shopping was a matter of life and death. There was an outlet mall a few camps away that sold fashionable mammoth skin winter coats but the prices were unreasonable and traffic was so bad that most of the time it wasn’t even worth going. When one of the cavewomen keeled over from some bad berries, the other females would fight over her clothes. Being jealous of other girl’s outfits was literally a matter of life and death. Things went on like this for a couple dozen millennia until the behavior was ingrained into women’s DNA.

That is why women treat fashion like it’s a fucking arms race and they can’t buy groceries without obsessing over every item on the list. Seriously, how long does it take to pick out salad dressing? We both know you’re going to get that low fat Hidden Valley Ranch. Quit dicking around looking at every bottle of balsamic vinaigrette and move the fuck on. Meanwhile, men just run in, grab some meat, and get back to the cave like they are being chased by a pack of wolves.

Most men would rather drink hemlock tea than go shopping with a woman, but it is a fate we all have to endure. There is no sane reason for a woman to ask her man to go shoe shopping with her but she’s subconsciously worried about getting too far away from the cave without someone to help watch for predators. No matter what you do it’s going to hurt, but there are some tricks to help minimize the pain of going shopping.

If you are going grocery shopping make sure your cavewoman has a full stomach. Women are so indecisive that restaurants close by the time she decides where to go. Take a hungry woman down the snack isle and you’ll need a new haircut by the time she settles on those cardboard tasting dietetic cookies. If you are going clothes shopping make sure she is starving before you leave the house. She won’t listen to your desperate pleas to quit looking at shoes but she’ll listen to her stomach.
Go to stores that have a bargain bin. Sales are the modern equivalent of looting a nice pair of moccasins off a poisoned friend’s corpse. Drop her off with the rest of the jackals and go grab all the stuff on your list while she’s busy fighting over marked down mascara.

No matter what she tries on, tell her you absolutely love it. It doesn’t matter if it’s a leopard print moo-moo. Tell her it makes her look ten pounds lighter. She’ll be happy about you helping and the sooner she picks something out the sooner you can stop listening to the Christmas music they start playing in every store the day after Halloween. It doesn’t matter what she buys, she’s going to return it anyway.

Shopping with your partner is like ballroom dancing. Keep your arm around her waist and lead. If you see her eyeing the shampoo isle, spin her around and tango your way to somewhere safe like the paper towels.

Always make a list. We don’t know why, but for some reason women love lists. You’ll probably wind up with double the shit you had written down but at least you have a stopping point when you cross the last thing off.

If all else fails, take her shopping forty five minutes before the store closes. You don’t have to drag her away if the manager is already pushing her out the door for you.

This post is part of my ongoing Girlfriend Survival Guide series that I plan on turning into a book. If you have any feedback on this post or have a topic you'd like to see covered please leave a comment.

Sources: 1, 2, 3. 4, 5