For several years, I've been going supermarket shopping with my wife. Time was when I wouldn't have been found dead or alive within five miles of a big-box store. "Well, lifestyles change," he said, as he cruised the parking lot, searching for a spot within a football field of the entrance.

	John F. Waldron, a retired Pittsburgh advertising writer, lives in Virginia Beach, (jjwaldo@ webtv.net).

I tell our friends that we shop together because l like to feel that I'm "contributing." Those who know me rather smirk at that one. They've heard that I insist upon selecting my own breakfast cereal, my own pretzels, my own frozen pot pies, my own light beer and my own banana popsicles. That seems to be what I'm "contributing."

Being the man of the house, I must select a safe, properly rolling (no wobbleys) shopping cart. Only then will I consent to pushing it up and down, back and forth for an hour or so, dutifully remaining three paces behind the boss lady with the Master List.

After a half-hour of perfunctory purchases, I'm ready for some areas of wide selection, like canned tomatoes or frozen vegetables. Those "Valley of Decision" aisles become nice, little rest stops where the cart serves as a kind of hospital walker on wheels. While wife Janny carefully compares ingredient labels, I can lean over the cart and lapse into the bulkhead stare for a few nods.

I learned a long time ago to keep my opinions to myself on cuts of meat, fresh fish and chicken, fruits and vegetables and freshly baked bread.

Men simply have no expertise in those areas. Do you really think that you know whether a honeydew melon is perfectly ripe? I don't think so. Unless you have memorized my wife's secret, sequential ritual, you'll pick a raw or an over-ripe one every time.

All of the senses must be involved as the tests are conducted, and only women who spent childhood summers on a farm know the inspection regimen of sight, touch, smell and sound. Yes, sound. If you don't know which sound to listen for when you shake it, you'll always select a melon "that's just not quite ready yet."

Selecting fresh corn-on-the-cob requires witch-like skills. With a huge sign above the bin that pleads, "Please don't strip-back corn before buying," dozens of beady-eyed shoppers, with lips pursed, strip-back each ear and peek inside.

Not my help-mate. She follows a mystic fresh-corn ritual that involves a type of seance with each ear. No stripping back at any time! Rather, it's an eyes-closed, two-handed meditation that discerns kernel size, density, freshness and possible worm presence -- now or in the past -- which allows that dear girl to pick flawless corn every time.

As we continue to cruise through the store, she earnestly checks off each item on the Master List. That tends to minimize impulse purchases, for I, like a profligate congressman, will always try to justify excessive spending on unnecessary items just to satisfy the constituency back home. Me.

No one looks forward to The Check-Out as much as I do. Why, you ask? Because I happen to play a significant role in that procedure as I bag and re-pack the shopping cart after the goods have been scanned and pushed forward. I absolutely love keeping up with the register person -- sometimes smiling politely at her inability to keep pace with my flying hands and swift cart-packing. If we coordinate well and finish simultaneously, I've been known to lean forward and whisper, "My dear, we were great together."

That's when my wife says, "To the car, Romeo."