Talking Turkey and the Ham Harangue

I just came home from a trip to the grocery store--the necessity of which is a topic of much debate in this household.  My father-in-law is visiting tonight and we need something for dinner.  "I could make an appetizer (it's a kick-ass Charleston Cheese Dip) and we could have sandwiches", I told my wife.  "Do we have good lunch meat?", she asked.

This question drives me crazy.

What does 'good' mean?  Who's definition of good?

I went grocery shopping yesterday, but apparently, the lunch meat in our fridge is not good enough for the family to dine on.  Our son can brown bag it five days a week, but when the father-in-law, who visits once a month, stops by I'm supposed to roll out the red carpet of cold cuts?  Don't get me wrong, I get along with my father-in-law, I just don't see the need to buy "good" lunch meat when we have lunch meat that's "good enough for our son to eat every day at  school" already in our fridge.

I tell her the lunch meat is fine and then she looks at me like I'm evil.

"What about bread?", she asks?  "Yes, we have bread".  "No, I mean like kaiser rolls or hoagies."

It's at this point that I feel my wife forgets the state I was in when she first met me.  I was a young bachelor (sexy, I might add) living with his best friend...and his friend's girlfriend...and another friend on occasion...and sometimes whoever might pass out on our couch--all this in a one bedroom apartment.

We didn't have money for "good" lunch meat.   Most of our paychecks went to beer.  I'm not talking about the "good" imported beer either.  I'm talking about 7-dollars for a thirty pack kind of beer.  That left us enough money to buy a couple packages of Budding lunch meat and the occasional treat--a QuickTrip sandwich.

  Because nothing helps that 23-cent can of beer go down like a 59-cent package of turkey.

Background really puts things into perspective.  I feel like I'm throwing money away buying Hillshire Farm's or Sara Lee's meat at 6-dollars a pound.  Now she wants me to go to Schnuck's and pay 10-dollars a pound for some "good" lunch meat.  It's all the same to me, but I'll do it for her.  Besides, I can pick up a six-pack of the "good" beer while I'm there.