My husband is a food marketer's wet dream. He has amnesia for brands he hates. We go grocery shopping together, more often than not. He is prone to buy food so retched it makes his tongue curl up and die in the back of his mouth. Repeatedly. I'm his short-term memory on these trips. The quality assurance wife, when I'm allowed to do my job.
This past week it was Nabisco's SnackWell's 50% Reduced Fat Creme Sandwich Cookies. Which had made an appearance in our pantry four months before, when it was ripped open, sampled, spit out, and then, the box was pushed to the back, left to stale. Until I discovered them and tossed them in the garbage.
This weekend, he plucked from the shelf again- the green box with a scattering of photoshopped golden yellow sandwich cookies with the white layer filling middle. They're described as "layered with sweet, rich creme you love". I hate the word creme. Cremes best describe the cure for vaginal itch, hair conditioners that promise drenched moisture and poison ivy salves. You apply cremes. You don't fucking eat them.
My personal judgments aside, I reminded him of the past. A scolding more than a mental note.
You don't like those.
I've never tried these before, he protested.
Yes you have. You spit them out.
No, I don't recall.
I do.
It must have been some other brand.
Nope.
Are you positive? These look different.
You eat Snackwells. Cats get hairballs. It's the same sound.
Will you eat them if I don't like them?
I've been trying to telling you- you don't like them. Plus, I loathe Snackwells.
It can go on and on. We don't squabble lovingly about money or sex but what the Snackwells represent. His forgetting. And then he makes that move where his hand at the end of his arm, clasping the box of cookies, swoops up and away from my reach. He's six feet tall. Then, suddenly when I turn away in defeat, I hear the slam dunk in the shopping cart. He's buying the SnackWells 50% Reduced Fat Creme Cookies. End of debate.
Two days ago, I spied him opening up the package of SnackWells, taking out a cookie to accompany his tea. He bites into it and I watch his face crumple. He calls our border collie. Lincoln! And feeds him the partial eaten cookie.
Afterwards, he walks into the living room with the box-full minus one. Asks me if I'd care for some.