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Condoms.

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SAFEWAY -- With most embarrassing purchases, you can at least pretend that you are buying your bottle of hemorrhoid cream or diarrhea medicine for a sick friend, but with condoms, you haven’t got that defense. Especially if you are buying them with your partner present.
(Note: name changes have been made to ensure the protection of Josh’s not-at-all obvious role in the following story.)

About a week ago, I went on a Safeway trip with my partner, “Pedro,” to buy some assorted comestibles and other household items. Of course, I was innocently walking around the store thinking normal non-sexual thoughts using my female brain when Pedro’s male brain suddenly remembers for the twelfth time that day that “Hey, you know what we are out of!?” He says this with a smug little smile on his face communicating how proud he is, as if the situation of having used so many condoms that we are all out has graduated little Johnson to a brand new manliness level of which it is very pleased.

Sigh. I pause for a moment to roll my eyes, take a deep breath, and give in to my situation of buying condoms with my partner for the first time. Unsure of where to go, I turn around and start looking at the grocery store signs. “Baking Supplies” “Frozen Foods” “Rice and Pasta.” Finally I find the condoms, but as I do so, I also find a respectable-looking African-American couple that is busy considering a condoms purchase for themselves. In a rare moment of outward confident sexuality, I bravely, and without hestitation make a full 180 turn and retreat to the back of the store, where Pedro and I spend several minutes pretending to be really interested in a pack of lunch meat. "It's not that we are afraid to buy condoms, we just really like ham!" we exclaim as store employees and customers pass by. When finally we return to the deserted condom aisle, we are surprised to discover an intimidatingly excessive assortment of condoms. All types of little rubber hats float on the shelves before us, making confusing claims such as “flavor twisted sensation” and “extended pleasure.” All in all, we are a little overwhelmed. It is not a good situation for a pair of maximizers.

In the next ten minutes, I learned a quite a bit about condoms and all their variety. For starters, ‘extended pleasure’ means a condom that has benzocaine on the inside (the stuff they put on the q-tip to numb your gums when you’re at the dentist) that is supposed to help make things last a little longer. Kinda disturbing, really. According to Perdo, condoms that say “large” on the box are just a marketing ploy for insecure men and are unnecessary, but seriously – as if he knows how Little Pedro would compare in a police line-up. Anyway, Pedro eventually gets overwhelmed as I try to maximize a totally overpriced (like $10!?) condom purchase, and he leaves me there standing in front of the wall of condoms with nothing but a curt “just choose one” to support my decision making. At this, I toy with the idea of buying the ones that are marked “for her pleasure” just to get him back, but instead I snag a box of spermicidal boys and run after Pedro in a mild fluster.
  ¶ 6:02 PM