Domestic Bliss

"While your ancestors were playing the bagpipes, my Viking ancestors were killing all your women," E said, while we tried to pick out our 3rd and hopefully final mattress pad at Bed Bath & Beyond out in outter SE Portland after returning our 1st and 2nd mattress pad at B3 and Target minutes before. I love it when he says shit like that. This is what I call Domestic Bliss: buying shit, then returning it while trading witty historical quips and the occasional dry hump in the retail aisle.

In fact, we (as in "E") return sh*t a lot. He's made it into a kind of art. One in Three purchases go back, with the exception of food and booze. We take care of that quick-like, being descended from whiskey-drinking, cattle-stealing Scotsman and vodka-swilling, Swedish horn-wearing rowers.

When in stores like B3, I handle a lot of product. The sparkly candles, cheap towels, the vibrating "massagers". E thought about buying a Man Groomer electric razor. I kind of lost myself and started pricing Pez dispensers and "Easy Crack" ice-trays. Is this what it means to be modestly successful? I think the days of bumming cigarettes and 3-buck Chuck were purer. I'm hoping we won't be back tomorrow, hung over, returning our mattress pad. Again.