Grocery shopping on the weekend with Nikki together in the store, I remarked that we were just like real people.  Nikki knew exactly what I meant because we were together in the store, unhurried, browsed around a bit, picked up a few things, paid and left to go home together and watch a movie.  Like real people.  This was made possible because we had no children (thanks Mom!), and we were in full on work-mode at the house this weekend.  It was a rare freedom to just work all day on things that needed doing, then stop when we were tired and just go and be together and do stuff.  Usually a trip to the grocery store is much different:
I will be driving home through traffic on a weeknight, in constant communication with the team at home via hands free call.

“Sitrep, Lincoln Fields, light traffic.”
“Ok, what’s your ETA?”
“Inbound, probably 15 minutes”
“Affirmative, 15 minutes.”
“At this speed I will be able to complete objective B (the grocery store) with 8 minutes to spare.”
“Affirmative, copy that.  Dinner will be complete in 34 minutes, that is a hard stop.  Copy?”
“Copy.  Still able to achieve objective B, just ran two red lights and cut off an old lady.”

And even when I get to the grocery store, it’s not all strolling and thoughtfully reading labels and making the right choices for my family.  Nope.  It’s more like four wheeled cart slides around the dairy case, sneakers screeching on the terrazzo, fighting for purchase to change direction and get to the deli counter to buy ham before supper goes critical and we lose the window.  All the while, my phone is to my ear sandwiched between my sweaty cheek and hunched shoulder, getting updates on how the rest of the team is doing.

“Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, do you acknowledge?”

And at home, Nikki has been carefully orchestrating the after school melee, cheerfully and efficiently defying the laws of time and space and somehow making more simultaneous stops at more locations than we even have children, and still managing to find something that we can eat.  How does that even work?  She was in four places at the same time last Tuesday, all 5km apart from each other.  My wife the Time Lord, sexy and omnipotent all at once.  A regular week at our house?  2 swimming lessons, 3 Karate lessons, 2 drivers ed classes, Jordy works 3 times, dance lesson for Cael, dance lesson for us, dog training, and for some dang reason we are having a HELL of a time getting back to the gym.  Pussies.

Anyway, at some point I lurch to a halt in the tactical Sienna in our laneway, leap out into a shoulder roll with the grocery bags and sprint through the front door, delivering the final supplies for dinner with no margin left, often opening the packages as I run down the hall so I can slam dunk the food into the pot.  It gets flash cooked for 30 seconds and then scooped out and put onto plates that are then slid under the waiting forks of the rest of the family.

I dare you to try to eat a leisurely and relaxed dinner at that point.  I’m done in about 3.5 seconds, and have flipped the plates and cutlery into the dishwasher, shuriken-like, and moved onto the next thing.  Usually still chewing my last bite as I fire up the tactical Sienna for the next mission.

That’s most week nights at our house.