Elmlea Husband strikes again!

[ElinorRigby]

I posted a few days back about my husband, who was given a shopping list with 'cream' and 'orange juice cartons' on it. He returned with a) Elmlea and b) cartons of orange squash - despite the fact that both of us always have real cream and pure fruit juices.

We had a conversation in which I said if the shop did not stock the products on the list, it was better to return empty-handed.

I asked him to take the squash back and he did so, telling me he'd now go some apple juice in exchange. (In fact he had got multivitamin fruit and carrot juice.)

Yesterday the handle of our smaller bucket snapped. We have one heavy duty bucket - the kind used for outdoor jobs - and the smaller bucket that I use for soaking and handwashing. I said 'Could you get me a small 8 litre bucket while you're out.'

He returned saying he had had to look everywhere in order to find a small bucket. He then showed me quite a large bucket with a label on the side saying '13 litre capacity.'

I said, 'This is too big.'
He said, There weren't any small ones. I went to lots of shops.'
I said, 'Did you get a receipt'
He said, 'No.'

I took the 13 litre bucket back intending to ask for a refund and then order one of the right size from Asda Click and Collect. But the woman at the shop said, 'We do have smaller buckets'. So, because she was being helpful, I got a 7 litre one from the display at the front of the shop.

Is this a '3 strikes and he's out' situation?

[MiladyThesaurus]

Expat: maybe he considers them acceptable food items for his family though. Just because they're not the ones the OP would pick up, doesn't make them inappropriate.

I think some people could considerably lighten their 'mental load' by not worrying about which orange liquid is going in the cups.

[Macsmurray]

No doubt if he brought the 7 litre bucket home you would have told him to take that back too.

[Anniegetyourgun]

Rather than make him take the stuff back, you should have made him consume it. If he hated it, so much the better

[ffsnotthisagain]

I didn't know elmlea wasn't cream 😫

[kmc1111]

People don't pay attention to the things they aren't fussed about. I care about food, so I know exactly what I want. To DH it's just fuel, he couldn't give a crap what brand it is or even what it is so long as it's edible. So I write specific brands and sizes on the list when he shops. On the other hand he does most of the laundry and deep cleaning, and is fussy about brands and scents and so on whereas I'd just buy whatever's on sale that week. So he writes exactly what he wants on my lists. Do that for a while and eventually you start remembering what you usually buy. If you don't do the shopping and you don't mind what you have at home, it just doesn't stick otherwise.

Anyway, I don't know what was wrong with the bucket. You asked for an 8l bucket, they don't have them, so he got a bucket that could hold 8l. That's the thing with shopping for other people. You might reason that a 7l bucket will do, but if you've asked someone else for an 8l bucket, they're going to go with the bucket that actually holds 8l rather than the one that doesn't. They aren't in your head, they don't know how flexible the requirement is, they just know you've asked for 8l. If you're that fussy about a small thing like that then you need to be ultra specific or just do it yourself.

[Tazerface]

I don't think OP sounds like a nutter

Being married, you kind of get used to the things that are regularly bought and the things that are never bought. Elmlea I think is excusable but squash opposed to juice isn't.

Also I think why does he need a full on explanation of 'the bucket can't be too big because it won't fit in the space allocated plus I can't lift it' when he not only has eyes but apparently is a grown man?

Just a minor annoyance I'm sure OP but you know people in AIBU like a bit of hyperbole

[BasinHaircut]

I didn't know elmlea was t cream either. I'm not sure I've ever had it but what the fuck is it then???

[TatianaLarina]

Not a question of personal preference at all, but the ability to distinguish x from y.

It's not 'that one distinction' that matters in his job - there are 1000s of distinctions in medicine that have to be made, and remembered repeatedly.

[expatinscotland]

'I think some people could considerably lighten their 'mental load' by not worrying about which orange liquid is going in the cups.'

Silly me! I have to worry about it because if there's aspartame in it it will cause tics in my autistic son. One poster on here has to take heed because her child is a celiac.

[Addley]

It's diluted hydrogenated vegetable fats with things to hold it all together.

[WinifredAtwellsOtherPiano]

There you go Flibberdee. Enjoy

[silkpyjamasallday]

I think he is purposefully being a useless prick so he won't be asked to do anything again. It is a well used tactic, a faux learned helplessness and feigning ignorance which can excuse him from doing tasks he can't be arsed with.

[Addley]

My apologies, it's dream topping that's hydrogenated. Elmlea is just ordinary vegetable oil. Mmmmmmmmmm.

[ElinorRigby]

No, the scenario would be this.

Husband - who though not a pediatric surgeon is a professional who has worked in fields where attention to minute detai is essential, would pour the Elmlea on his strawberries.
Him: 'Oh God, what's this? It's disgusting
Me: 'It's what you bought when I asked you to buy cream.
Him: (geting up and going to the sink and washing his strawberries to get the Elmlea off) Well, it's absolutely foul.

Husband would then keep the rejected, opened Elmlea in the fridge so as 'not to waste it'. And 'because it might come in useful'. Months later when it was green and fluffy, I would pour it away.

The same scenario would happen with the squash, except that I would throw them away when clearing out the cupboards between a year and two years after the 'use by' date.

[TatianaLarina]

Yeah, because the world is going to hell in a handcart, you have no right to expect your partner to shop for the appropriate food items for his own family, that's women's lot hmm

Exactly.

[VanillaSugar]

I once EXdh for some soluble aspirin. He came back with strawberry icecream. That marriage didn't survive.

[WinifredAtwellsOtherPiano]

Also the OP already has a large bucket, as her DH knows full well. That's why another large bucket is not what she wants.

[BumWad]

What is buttermilk?

[SantasLittleMonkeyButler]

Do you also treat your husband like a naughty child?

The size of the bucket doesn't matter FFS. One a little too big is better than one a little too small!

If a shop doesn't stock cream, Elmlea is a very logical substitution. Ditto orange squash cartons instead of orange juice cartons.

He's probably terrified every time you ask him to get something!

[SantasLittleMonkeyButler]

always not also.

[SoleBizzz]

The bucket part is nuts.

[RJnomore1]

Jesus fucking Christ

[VanillaSugar]

I asked him nicely, obviously

[TheFlyingFauxPas]

I consider myself reasonably intelligent. Until this week I had no idea Elmlea wasn't just a long life cream. I put 'cream' on my own list then come home with Elmlea.
I have noone better qualified to send shopping. Unless I send the dog.

[ChocChocPorridge]

Elinor has it. That's what would happen here too.

Generally DP is absolutely fine (OK, he doesn't actually think through the whole week, and he over-buys salad, but he'll come home with an OK shop) - but, I can have a conversation with him about something we need for some reason, I can explain why I need a certain something, suggest that I've seen something that might work, and things that might not, and ask him to have a look and make a sensible choice. He will discard all of that, and come home with something inappropriate for the use.

And it's not like if he really was perplexed, that he couldn't call and ask.

I think you're getting a hard time. If this is the stuff you always have and always buy, he should be aware enough to at least get something equivalent.