Why ready-ripe avocados are just false economy

Have you ever considered that the choices you make in the supermarket can change the course of your Saturday nights?  Let me be more specific.  Your choice of avocado.

I recently discovered my wife had been buying ready-ripe avocados instead of ripen at home, costing us, on average, an extra 5p per avocado.  Now we get through about 4 per week, that’s a cost of 20p per week and annually that’s £10.40.  One adult cinema ticket costs £11. On Friday while at work I got a text from the wife, it read: Fancy an old school date night on Saturday?  Dinner and a movie?  - You can see where I'm going with this? 

Ok, i'll admit it, recently I’ve been very tight, moaning about every penny we spend, but in my defence, baby-planning and living room renovation doesn't come cheep!  And here she was, suggesting cinema and dinner on a SATURDAY night.  Did she not know it’s not buy-one-get-one-free on a Saturday?  

I began hastily typing my response; Why don’t we watch a movie on Sky and get a pizza and some microwave popcorn from Sainsbury’s? As I was about to hit send, it dawned on me: this was probably a test and I was about to fail miserably.  In fact, I had a suspicion that if I was to send the aforementioned text, I would find myself alone, on a Saturday night, while my wife hit every cocktail bar in town with her friends, treating them all with our money!  So for the sake of our marriage I did the right thing; Sounds perfect babe, did you have a film in mind? 

So that’s how I found myself in the car on our way to cineworld on Saturday night, without my usual BOGOF voucher with my wife casually informing me she’d forgotten her purse, contemplating how ready-ripe avocados are just a false economy.  But, I kept my cool, and sensing this was another test, I just smiled and said; "No bother babe I’ve got mine."

However, it doesn't end there.  After a lovely burger we realised we where a bit early for the cinema, so decided to 'spice up the date' and go to the arcade for a game of air hockey - I know!  After a quick search into the depths of our coat and jean pockets, I resolved myself to getting cash out as the best thing we found was a Murray Mint I'd taken from an Indian restaurant 4 months ago.  Upon investigation of the only cash machine on the site, I realised it wanted to charge me £1.99 to withdraw MY OWN money from MY OWN bank account!  Honestly!  A glance of the slight smirk on my wife’s face prompted me to press the green button (if not ever so hesitantly) and accept the charge.  She knew this was killing me but, having known my wife for 17 years, I knew she wanted to see how far I would go, and she knew I wouldn't give in to her (this is what they call marriage check-mate) so after a few games, we were heading into the cinema.

After swallowing my resentment on parting with £22 for 2 standard cinema tickets and muttering under my breath about what a travesty it all was, I couldn't quite believe it when she said:  "I’m going to get some pick and mix."  Slightly choked  I stumbled after her faintly requesting for her 'not to go mad.' and muttering "We never eat them all, babe!"  Another test I thought.  OK.  After she’d part-filled her bag with sweets, she stepped away and appeared to be estimating the weight of it on her right hand - how sensible!  I thought, just a medium coke to share and we’re home dry.  But wait!  No!  She's heading over to the big boy sweets, the foot long jelly snakes and giant cola bottles that are sooo heavy.  Well a girl can only be expected to bite her tongue so much, I was already nearly £80 down and now she wanted to round that up to an even-hundred with bloody jelly snakes!

But all's well that ends well and like in all good marriages, we came to a compromise.  Date-night lives to see another day, she got her jelly snakes and today, we’re heading out to Sainsbury's to buy ripen at home avocados.