According to recent journal articles, new drugs and procedures have pushed the average male’s life expectancy well beyond that of The Simpsons. Combine that information with a few formulas recently developed by statisticians and there’s good news. As you gracefully age into your 80s and 90s there is an excellent chance that sooner or later your wife will ask you to go grocery shopping.

Alone.

Make no mistake. This is not a simple matrimonial request. This is a test of whether you’ve been paying attention during all those years of marriage, which serves you right for absently saying, “Uh, huh,” to your wife while you were watching bowling.

Agreeing is as fraught with peril as saying “I do” on your wedding day. And, like saying “I do,” there is really no way out. The only difference is you don’t have to return any wedding gifts. However, this will prove to be of small consolation when your wife presents you with…the list.

“This isn’t so bad,” you think to yourself. “All I have to do is wheel my cart around the store and grab a few items off the shelves.” For your information, “This isn’t so bad” is exactly what heart transplant patients think until the doctor cuts off their morphine.

When you arrive at the store, do not rush to buy items in the order they’re on the list. Your wife wrote that list with care. Shop in order and your random motion will immediately tag you as being shopping-list whipped. Flirting with women shoppers, which you’re not there to do, will be futile under such circumstances. It’s best to chart a path through the store that exudes confidence and self-assuredness, traits women find sexy.

Start by buying all refrigerated items first. If some items are frozen, buy them first. If ice cream is on the list, oh boy, you’ve struck shopping gold.

Next, find Carlos. Every store has a Carlos. (Hint: He may be a she.)

Carlos knows the store the way you know you’ll never bowl a perfect game. If you bring home the wrong brand of Spaghetti-Os or the wrong size of laundry detergent your wife will strike an impatient pose—yes, THAT impatient pose—and say, “Did you ask Carlos?” And, in the unlikely event you bring home everything on the list, as requested, being able to say, “Carlos helped me,” is preferable to the truth (“I had help from that red-haired widow from down the street, the one with the birthmark on her thigh”).

On your way to the checkout line you have two important decisions to make. One, does your wife want you to pay with the Nordstrom’s credit card, so she earns points toward shoes, or with the American Express card, so the two of you earn points toward a trip to see her mother? If your wife has a pulse, you know the answer.

Two, what can you do to make some memories, the kind of memories that guarantee you won’t be shopping here again? Suggestions include cutting in front of the oldest shopper in line, buying some hyperkinetic kid a box of sugar cookies, or turning over a rack of bread.  (Hint: Getting pummeled by loaves of Wonder Bread hurts less than getting thrashed by a solid-wood cane.)

Whatever you do, be sure to apologize profusely and make it clear you are shopping for your wife. Identify her by name. Show pictures. Remember, you want this to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Spend a few minutes in the parking lot enjoying the great outdoors or dreaming about bowling. Then, proceed home. If Carlos hasn’t called your wife by the time you get there, hand her the melted ice cream.