There’s a strange sort of sound that escapes a man’s mouth when he hears the phrase, “Let’s go shopping.” It’s somewhere between a grumble and a wince, a gwince, and it usually indicates his reticence to hold spaghetti-strapped paper bags while sitting on an uncomfortable chair waiting for his partner to look at something they’ll never buy. I know that’s a massive generalization, that there are plenty of men who don’t gwince when asked to go shopping. I acknowledge that those men are better than I. Because usually, I’m a gwincer. Which is a total bummer for a spouse whose job is literally shopping for things. Emily spends hours perusing the aisles of antique malls, vintage stores, and flea markets, and she specifically looks at vacation destinations to make sure there’s an antique shop in town even though she almost never purchases anything, she just likes to look! Just for inspiration! It’s truly baffling to me, and after all these years, you’d think I’d be better at tagging along, but as we say to our children when they encounter a rude kind of person, I’m still learning how to behave.
So Emily has resorted to bribing me. Like I’m a toddler. When she proposed this particular journey to the mall, to gather ideas for a gift guide, she said in a tone usually reserved for training a puppy, “We can go to lunch, maybe get you a beer.”

It totally worked. After ...