Grocery shopping as a couple is a different experience. Pre-Alan, I could be in and out of the grocery store with two weeks' worth of food in twenty minutes. It doesn't take long when all you have to do is stockpile frozen pizza, Diet Coke, potato chips and red wine. Thanks to Alan, I eat healthier these days; as I write there is even now a fresh vegetable in my house, I kid you not. And no, Mom, I'm not counting bean dip as a vegetable. Alan - get this - actually plans meals.

Therefore, it's not surprising that he's the one who is far, far better about making our shopping list, remembering to put all the ingredients for a given recipe on the list, watching supplies and adding items as they run low. Unfortunately, he has atrocious handwriting, exacerbated by the facts that (a) he's a guy and (b) he's left-handed. Then when we arrive at Publix and I commandeer a cart, I squint at the list with no idea which way I should head or what things I'm supposed to grab when I get there.

Things on our list like "piffled swat", "claton", "cedars", spigot chov" don't translate readily to my eyes as "pickles - sweet", "chicken", "colas", "Sprocket chow". So the last time we went grocery shopping, I added a few things to the list myself. Along with my usual staples like bubble bath, fangpaste, cheese and Diet Cokes, I sprinkled in words like "blave", "smarr" and "pidmump". I was hoping that when Alan got to one of those, he would puzzle over it and eventually make a humourous guess. But the husband, he is too wily for me! When he got to the first nonsense entry, he gave it a quizzical look and asked, "Honey, did you put fake words on the grocery list to trick me?"

That man is S-M-R-T.