Men, women, and the meaning of 'corn'

I saw it with my own eyes. The absolute, fundamental, defining difference between men and women, played out right there in the grocery store checkout line.

It all came down to one word.

Corn.

I was on one of those 911, Five-Alarm missions to the nearest grocery store because the spouse, The Beloved, was in the middle of making something complicated in the kitchen exactly as reciped down to the quarter teaspoon and realized she was missing a key ingredient.

Progress was halted until I quit kicking it back on the sofa watching the ballgame. The need for immediate procurement prevailed.

Of course, the needed item was one of those food products I never buy for myself. My navigation guide to a grocery store is that the meat counter is straight ahead, and the beer cooler is off to the left.

The clock was ticking. I searched everywhere. I discovered Huitlacoche, cabbage juice, Kolaches, marzipan carrots, branded red eggs, and Finnish Canned Bear.

Even those new Nampons Nosebleed Stoppers. It seems there are a lot of nose products out there. Nampons, Sinugator, Nascool, and my favorite, Navage Nasal Irrigation Brain Stem wash.

What’s with all the attention to nose hygiene, I wondered while pondering the Nampons.

Ahh, the task! The ticking clock! Where was I?

There was a shelf-stacking guy in a logoed bib by the BBQ Rub. I jumped between him and the shelves and said, “Know where the …” and I looked at my notes, “… nonfat, whipped, unflavored Philadelphia Cream Cheese is?”

He slowly put down the price gun, looked at me up and down and said, “Ahh, you try the cheese section?”

No, I didn’t try the cheese section, thank you. Whipped Philadelphia whatever didn’t sound like cheese to me. Velveeta sounded like cheese to me. Individually wrapped single slices of American sounded like cheese to me.

I located the damn cream cheese. But I was not done.

Another item on the list: “Crackers. Good ones.”

“Not those crackers you usually get,” The Beloved had said to my back as I was racing out of the house.

“You mean, Saltines,” I had said over my shoulder.

“No, not Saltines,” she had said. “No Ritz, either. Good Crackers.”

Good crackers? What’s wrong with a pack of Nabs? I looked for cracker packages in French or Italian. I found some “good” crackers. Foreign, with a strange French name.

In the checkout line, a husband and wife behind me put their overloaded basket on the belt.

The husband pulled from the basket a bag of Bird’s Eye Super Sweet Frozen Corn. He reached for the next item, Doritos.

The wife said, “What’s that?” and pointed to the bag of corn.

“Corn,” he said. “You said, ‘Get some corn.’ Here’s your corn.”

“That’s not corn,” the wife said.

“It says ‘Corn’ right here on the bag,” he said. “See? ‘CORN’.”

“Why’d you get frozen corn?” she said.

“You said get corn,” he said, “I got corn. It was right there in front of me next to the Pizza Rolls. Said ‘Corn’ right on the bag. And look, I can hold the corn AND my bag of Doritos in the same hand. Easy.”

She eyeballed her husband like he had the IQ of a cheese stick.

“Honey,” she said. “When I said ‘Get corn’ I assumed you’d get REAL corn. You know, like ears of corn? Why in the world would you think I meant frozen food?”

“You said, ‘Get some corn’,” he said, looking like he just flunked spelling. “Here’s your corn. This …” and he held up the bag of Bird’s Eye, “was right there, easy, and it said, ‘Corn’ just like you asked.”

“Oh my gawd,” she said and huffed off to the produce section. She returned with an armload of fully clothed ears of corn. “THIS is corn.”

“Oh,” he said, “So not only am I an idiot but now I have WORK TO DO shucking all of those.”

Ladies and gentlemen, that is what I am talking about. Men, universally, just like water, will ALWAYS take the path of least resistance. They want it easy, convenient, uncomplicated, quick, and done with. Over and out.

Women, see, want it precise, detailed, exactly, no substitution, nothing is too difficult, too complicated, too complex, or too time-consuming. They want what they want for the reasons, the precise reasons, that they want it. Regardless.

I wanted to ask the husband his name, but he looked too deflated. He knew that he had failed at the simplest of tasks — Get Corn — and now had about two hours of serious labor ahead as well as the Cold Chill in the kitchen and elsewhere.

Remembering that things had ground to a halt in mine and The Beloved’s kitchen and I was on a 911, Five-Alarm mission, I raced home. Time was of the essence.

From the bag I produced the damn never-heard-of-it cream cheese.

“Great,” The Beloved said. “Perfect. Crackers?”

I presented the box with the foreign language on the label.

“What are these?” The Beloved said.

“Crackers,” I said. “Good ones. As per your request.”

She examined the box. “Gaviscon?”

“It ain’t Saltines,” I said.

“It’s a HEARTBURN medicine,” she said.

I looked at the box.

“Huh,” I said. “Well, that explains why it was next to the Nampons.”