By Kirk Boys   

I thought we had a perfectly good one, but my wife said we needed to make a change.  So Saturday we shopped for a new blender.  

 “That blender is 30 years old.  I threw it out,” my wife mentioned one Saturday morning over coffee.  

 “Didn’t it still work?” I asked. 

“Like I said, it was ancient,” she rolled her eyes, a sign discussion was over.

“Let’s go to target and get a new one,” she suggested.  

“We can make a day of it,” I offered.  

We agreed we had a plan.  “Nothing fancy,” my wife said.  Chop, grind and puree- that’s it.” 

A nice young woman in a red vest pointed us in the right direction.  “Appliances are across from grocery, aisle 38 I think.”  

We strolled past the shampoo and shavers, greeting cards and laundry soap, bedding and found blenders next to toasters in small appliances.  I could have stopped and looked for a birthday card or smelled some deodorants, but first things first.  A blender. 

“This Oster blender is only $29.99 and it comes in black,” my wife picked one out quickly, lickety-split my mom would have said.  Wish they had it in grey, but this will do.” She shimmied it out from the display and gently placed it in our huge, red, plastic cart.  “Take a look,” she motioned me over from the assortment of spatulas. 

It was all happening too fast.  I took my time and studied the box.  Oster Supreme, was in bold letters.  It looked identical to our old one, but it was black.  Our old blender was yellow, same color as a sunflower to be more specific.  I liked our old yellow one just fine, but it wasn’t my decision, like I said.  I lifted the Oster Supreme into our huge, shopping cart.  It looked lonely in there.  

Across from us, in aisle 41 a guy in a black track suit was looking over at us, eves-dropping on our blender talk.  There was a table of avocados piled up in a pyramid of sorts. Fresh from Mexico: a sign read.  It made me think Inca’s ate avocados.  The track suit guy was staring at us still.  I decided to ignore him.  I didn’t want any trouble, not when we were having so much fun in small Appliances.

As I mentioned, we were going to make a day of it and here we were, Oster Supreme in our cart, ready to head to check out.  There had to be something else we could buy, something else we could replace with a newer model.  It wouldn’t do, to head to checkout after 10 minutes.  It was only 11:00am.  That left us a lot of daylight to burn before we could reasonably go for lunch.

“Now what?” I glanced back at the avocados.  “Maybe we should buy some avocados and make guacamole with the new blender?  How does that sound, Honey?

“No. I don’t feel like guacamole.  You should know that Honey.  We’d have to buy chips and salsa and that’s a whole thing,” she said eyeing a lineup of toasters.

 “Do we need a toaster?” I walked over to look at the toasters too.  “No, not really,” she said running her fingers across the bread holes.  “It doesn’t hurt to look.”  I agreed, it never hurts to look unless you happen to be a creepy guy in a black track suit.  It’s a great time killer too, looking that is.  

Target is a busy place on a Saturday.  People buying groceries and T-shirts, diapers and lawn chairs.  There were a couple moms with kids in strollers.  I saw a woman in an cruise past in a electric wheelchair.  Following behind was her husband.  He was pushing a pink stroller with two teacup Chihuahuas.  They were wearing those Irish cable-knit sweaters. They were pretty cute.  I felt bad for that husband though.

I looked at my phone hoping there was a message, an email, anything to slow things down.  It was only 11:11 am.  we needed to kill at least 49 minutes more before we could break for lunch.

“That’s all we need,” my wife said.

It seemed a strange thing to say since we didn’t really need a new blender, but who was I to argue. 

“I’d like to get a magazine,” my wife stated but more like a question.  “I’d like to buy the magazine, ‘Real Simple’.” She was firm, decisive.  

“You mean like our Blender?”  I said.  “Real simple,” but I don’t think she heard me.  She was looking for the red vest Target girl again to find out where magazines resided.  

“I’d like to buy the grandkids some toys,” I said.  I sounded decisive too, I think.  

 “No way, those grandkids are spoiled as it is.  No toys.  No way.”  She was right of course.  Our grandkids are pretty spoiled.  

“I heard their other grandmother has a bunch of toys for them to play with at her house,” I said.  There is nothing more powerful than a grandmother’s love for her grandchildren or her desire to be their favorite.  My wife has her triggers.  

“Who told you that?” She perked up.  

 “Little Kenny,” I answer.  “He said his sister got a Barbie car and several Barbie dolls. Poke ‘man cards for Randy, oh and a remote-control Jeep for him.

 “Let’s look at toys,” I suggested.  

It’s very possible my 5-year-old grandson, Kenny, is adept at the art of manipulation.  You could even speculate it is his super power.  I think that’s what people are talking about these days when they claim their kids are gifted.  Kenny, Kiki, as we call him, knows how to work his grandparents for candy and toys.  He’s a great kid, but refuses to go poop.  It’s a thing too I finding out.

By the time we scour the shelves for toys and toasters, buy the magazine and check out the price of stuff we’ve already bought to make sure we got a good deal, it’s lunch time.

 “How do you feel about Panera’s?” my wife asks.  It’s 11:50am, well within a reasonable Saturday lunch time.  

 “Sounds perfect,” I say, so we go to Panera’s for lunch.  I have a half turkey sandwich and a cup of soup.  My wife has a bowl of chicken noodle.  We’re done at 12:45.

We take the blender home and we ignore the assembly instructions and start randomly connecting its various parts.  “How does this thing lock to the base?” My wife is struggling with the new blender.  

“Let me try,” I struggled too.  

“This blender is a piece of crap,” she said as she grabbed the box.

I agree.  “I can only think of a couple things a blender is good for anyway: Marguerite’s and guacamole and one of those is already off the table.   

“Did Kenny really say that, you know, about the toys?” My wife asked again.  I can see she’s frazzled.  Frazzled is not one of the things on our Saturday agenda.

“That’s what he said, Barbie car, Poke’ man cards, and a remote-control Jeep.  Bottom line, lots of toys at other Grandma’s house.”

We could have gone back to Target, gotten serious about the toy competition, but we didn’t.  We showed a surprising amount of restraint.  We got our blender and that was that.

All-in-all I guess we had a pretty good day, my wife and I.  We got along, we agreed on a blender and then we agreed it was a piece of junk.  The Oster blender is back in the box it came in.  We decide to watch some TV.  My wife ordered a Hamilton Beach blender from Amazon.  It’s the same one we threw away only it’s silver.  I figure it’s good for 30 years, give or take.

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Kirk Boys is a writer living outside Seattle. He holds a certificate in Literary Fiction from the University of Washington. His fiction and essays have been featured in numerous publications including most recently Portland Magazine, Litro Magazine and Bristol Noir.