He took one look at all the shopping bags and rolled his eyes. “No wonder you took so long in there. You must have bought half the store. Need some help with them?”
“Nope, I’m good.” His wife tossed a few bags into the back and settled comfortably in the passenger seat with the two remaining bags. “The drug store’s going out of business! Everything’s on sale.”
“Everything except my prescription, I bet.”
She grinned. “That goes without saying. How do you feel, anyway?”
He shifted in the seat. “Like I’ve been kicked. Hand over the medicine.” She offered the prescription bag and he took a little white pill from the bottle. “I hope this works fast. So what else did you get?”
Her eyes gleamed. “A thing of five hundred aspirin! Only two bucks!”
“That’s nice. Anything else good?”
“Sure. Expensive shampoo on sale really cheap, twelve-pack of soap, big box of Band-Aids…”
“That’s great, we’ll be all stocked up on that stuff for months.”
“Yeah!” She pushed her hair back behind her ears and smiled up at her husband. “Normally, I feel a little guilty when I go out and buy a ton of stuff, but this is all stuff we need, and it’s all so inexpensive, you know? I actually feel virtuous right now.”
He nodded. “Sure, it’s an investment. What’s in that big blue box?”
“A vaporizer! For in case one of us gets a cold in the winter.”
“People really use those things?”
She shrugged. “They must, they make them, don’t they? Oh, and look at this!”
He raised an eyebrow. “A box of a hundred condoms? Is this a joke?”
“Of course not! This is like a year’s supply!”
He turned the box over in his hands. “Well, what are we going to do with them?”
“Why, use them, of course.”
His eyes fell to the prescription bag. Cradling her face in his hands, he whispered, “Remember why we were at the hospital just now?”
She reddened, giggling. “Oh! Sorry! I guess I wasn’t thinking.”
“It’s okay. Takes time to get used to it.” He put the car in gear and started driving. Honestly, who needs a condom when they’ve just had a vasectomy?
Copyright 2005 Amy Frushour Kelly. All rights reserved.
Reproduction by any means prohibited without prior written consent.