The Breakfast Table: Things Men Shouldn’t Buy

Certainly no man wants to be stuck with tampon delivery duty. Not only does he have to undergo the embarrassment of the cashier’s funny looks, but he has to do things to make the trip worthwhile.

A man looks ridiculous walking up to the cash register with nothing in his hand but tampons (which probably took at least ten minutes to pick out) and he can’t simply tell everyone that they’re for his wife so the man finds an alternative. He must buy more stuff. Well, what could he possibly buy that could cover up the anxiety of buying just tampons? Beer would be good for starters. The wife is obviously moody or she would have gotten up and bought these things herself and the man wants to be too drunk to care how loud his wife screams at him for not being sensitive enough or staying too long at the office or whatever this month’s tragedy is so beer would definitely work.

“Twenty-four pack of Bud and a 12 pack of tampons. Will that be all?” says the cashier.

Absolutely not. That might be 24 cans but they ring up as one item. How else can the man cover up this problem? Candy! Lots of candy! These marketing people were geniuses! They practically gave that one away. The man couldn’t have forgotten that if he’d wanted to because it’s all right next to the register. Just for good measure he can buy nothing but chocolate so that the cashier won’t even ask what it’s for.

But there are less obvious yet possibly more peculiar things that a man could buy to cause potential awkwardness. Every cashier has probably seen the above routine but has he or she ever seen a man buy a whole mountain of Twinkies and nothing else?

First of all, if this is at Sam’s club then the man might have trouble getting the snack cakes out the sliding door that sometimes doesn’t work. Also, if the man is already fat then the cashier might just puke at the thought of him getting so big that those scooters that every Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club have will collapse underneath his weight.

This situation is different. The man can’t hide the issue at hand with any amount of beer or chocolate because that just makes it look even worse. He could say he was constructing a leaning tower of Twinkies and provoke an entirely different kind of laughter. He certainly couldn’t say, “Give me a break. They’re for my wife.”