Adventure on the Mustard Aisle

by Donna Poole

“Our exciting lives,” Gloria muttered. “Grocery shopping and church.”

“What’s that you say?” Bud asked loudly enough to be heard four aisles away.

Gloria shook her head and sighed. Where had that man learned to whisper? In the woods surrounded by chain saws?

All the years of farming on equipment without cabs hadn’t helped Bud’s hearing, and he refused to get tested for hearing aids.

“I hear everything I want to hear,” Bud said.

She’d reminded him of the time at church when the pastor had said, “Don’t think I’m preaching at you. I’m as big a sinner as any of you!”

Bud had thought the pastor had said he was preaching to the big sinners and had let out a loud and hearty “Amen!”

Gloria had felt the warmth creeping up her neck into her face when she’d heard smothered giggles. Even the pastor had grinned.

“See?” Gloria had said to Bud when she’d told him after church what had happened. “You do need hearing aids.”

Bud had just shrugged. He wasn’t easily embarrassed. He hadn’t gotten hearing aids, and he hadn’t quit being a big part of the amen corner either, something the young people at church found amusing. She had to admit people at church loved Bud. He and his warm laughter were the center of many after-church conversations.

Gloria thought about church as she and Bud walked up and down every aisle doing the weekly grocery shopping she hated. Maybe it was time, after fifty years, to look for a new church. She’d felt vaguely dissatisfied for quite some time, and she wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t the people; her life-time friends attended the little country church. It wasn’t the young preacher. His sermons were good. Just last week he’d preached on “a wise woman builds her house, but the foolish pulls it down with her hands.”

Maybe it’s me, Gloria thought. It’s a new year; maybe I need a change. I wonder what Bud would say trying out one of those bigger churches in town. Or, quitting church altogether. She sighed. She knew what Bud would say. She always knew what he would say about everything, and she was tired of that too.

Bud steered the cart down the mustard aisle, and something in Gloria snapped when Bud reached up, as he always did, for the same yellow plastic bottle of mustard he bought every single week. How much mustard had the man bought in the last fifty years of their marriage?

Just last week Gloria and Bud had celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary. The kids had wanted to give them a big party, and Gloria had loved that idea. But not Bud. He’d finally agreed to renew their vows in front of the church and have cake after, but he’d been uncomfortable doing even that. Gloria had hoped he’d kiss her after they’d renewed their vows, but she’d known better.

“Did you feel bad when Dad didn’t kiss you?” their daughter had asked. Gloria had shrugged. Her daughter had smiled, stooped, and kissed her cheek. “You know he adores you, Mom. He reminds me of a joke I heard once. An old lady asked her husband why he never said he loved her. He answered, ‘Told you I loved you when I married you. If I ever change my mind, I’ll let you know.’”

Gloria had managed a weak chuckle. That was Bud alright. She’d loved him unwaveringly through fifty years of five children, little money, and cows and crops coming first. She’d always hoped their retirement years would be different, but nothing had changed. He still never said he loved her. And he still bought mustard. Every. Single. Week.

“Think I’ll get two this week,” Bud said in his normal shouting level voice.

Gloria, who hadn’t raised her voice in fifty years, out-shouted him. “You put that mustard back on the shelf! This is ridiculous! No one buys the same thing every week when he already has it at home!”

Bud stared at Gloria like he’d never seen her before. Then he threw his head back and laughed. People in the aisle laughed too; Bud’s laugh always had been contagious. Gloria wished she could evaporate like steam from her tea kettle.

“Hey ladies!” Bud’s voice boomed. “I’m taking a survey. What do you buy here even though you have it at home? Speak up, now, please; I’m deaf!”

An amused crowd grew around him. Bud put the mustard in the cart, whipped out his old fountain pen, and started writing down the answers people shouted out.

“My little boy begs me to buy ketchup in case we run out of it. He’d eat it straight out of the bottle if I’d let him. “

Bud’s list grew as did the laughter and the camaraderie in the mustard aisle. Cheese, milk, ginger, eggs, coffee, spring water, chicken broth, Oreos, popsicles, crackers, sour cream, fruit, tortillas.

When someone hollered, “chocolate!” people cheered.

“You people are all foodies.” A woman laughed, steering her cart around the group. “What about toilet paper?”

Finally people drifted away, smiling. Gloria glared at Bud.

“I was just trying to show you I’m not the only one who buys something they already have. When I was a little boy we could never afford mustard.”

“You might not be the only one who buys what you don’t need, but you’re the only one I have to live with!”

Bud’s smile faded. He put the two mustards back on the shelf. Quietly the two of them walked to the check-out. The line was long. Gloria looked wistfully at the self-check-out. It was empty, but she knew better than suggest it. Bud liked real people to check him out, not a computer who wouldn’t repeat things when he couldn’t hear.

Chatter at the front quieted. Gloria saw ambulance lights outside of the window. An elderly man lay on a stretcher, and paramedics were carrying him from the store.  

Even Bud was quiet for once. Without saying anything to him, Gloria left and returned with two mustards. She put them in the cart and looked straight ahead.   

Tomorrow was Sunday. Pastor was going to preach part two of his sermon on how a wise woman builds her house. Perhaps it was never too late to build—or to rebuild. Maybe she’d made a start with two yellow plastic bottles of mustard.