I’d have to be very desperate to send my husband to shop

A few days ago, I called a friend who had given birth a week earlier to find out how she was doing.

However, we could barely talk, because her daughter was crying her lungs out in the background.

Apparently, the baby had colic – if you have a child, then you know this monster called colic, the source of married couples’ sleepless nights, and therefore, of six months of maddening friction between the new parents, as well as recurring thoughts of divorce.

Anyway, hearing the distress in her voice, I told her about this herb I often hear new mums gush about.

It is called fennel, and its seeds are said to relieve colic. Anxious to get a solution for the distress she was going through, the next morning, she sent her husband to buy her the seeds.

When he arrived home that evening, he handed her a bulky package.

My excited friend tore it up, only to get a packet of white spiral things called fennel sweets.

It turned out that her husband had been unable to get fennel seeds, and had therefore bought the next best thing — sweets called fennel, which had absolutely no relationship with this herb I’m talking about.

The manufacturer had probably thought that sweets called “fennel” would sound sweet to the ears.

This week, Daily Nation columnist, Karimi Gatimi, talked about how, after she gave birth, she sent her husband to buy containers for storing expressed milk.

She instructed him to specifically go to Nairobi’s Biashara Street, where these special containers are sold.

When her husband returned, he had with him this huge black paper bag, and in it were about 60 plastic containers (she had asked for 24), which looked nothing like what she had been expecting.

Turned out that instead of going to Biashara Street, he had gone to Kirinyaga Road, where he bought the first containers he came across.

At the risk of sounding as if I am advancing a stereotype, it might be true that men have a difficulty following instructions — from women, that is.

Take my other half for instance.

Every time I am forced (I say “forced” because sending him is always a last resort) to send him to the supermarket, I cringe with trepidation as I unpack the shopping, because I know I will either find something I didn’t ask for, or not find something I asked for – even if I had handed him a list.

Perhaps men find the “little things” too basic to dwell on, because they sure are good at deciphering complicated stuff.

Wait, or could it be that they deliberately deliver the opposite of what we ask for as a ploy to get us to stop sending them?

I mean, it is rather obvious that men abhor supermarkets, and any other place associated with shopping.

You only need to take a look at the miserable faces of the men trailing behind their bright-faced wives at your local supermarket.

If you spot a man pretending to be interested in the towel the woman he is with is looking at, the two are either newly married, or the man is courting her.

I take a short break. I will be back on September 21. Enjoy your Sunday.

The writer is editor of Daily Nation’s Living magazine. [email protected]; Twitter: @cnjerius