Marshall's and Michael

Michael loves to shop at Marshall's. I think it's part of his fundamental nature, the part that says, "I must have the best, but I must not pay full price." I remember when, in the early years of our marriage, my sister told me about a store she had discovered called TJMaxx. She said it had brand name clothes at low prices and that the merchandise changed almost every day. It sounded like a good idea to me, but where would I find one? She lived outside of D.C. at the time.
Then we learned that a TJMaxx had opened in Dover. Fifty miles is not so far to go for a real bargain, so we packed up the kids and went. Michael was skeptical, but when he was able to buy a Ralph Lauren sports coat for under a hundred dollars, he signed on for life. We continued to travel to Dover for various purchases; one year when we all needed winter coats, we walked out of there with five. (I got two; what can I say?) The nest thing we knew, wonder of wonders, someone built a Marshall's--the TJMaxx sister store-- three minutes from our house! Needless to say, it is a store we frequent, in every sense of the word.
Anyway, after he dropped me off at school yesterday--yes, I'm nine years old and I'm taken to school every day--he stopped in and came away with a jar of artichoke pasta sauce. When we got home, around 6:20, he asked me what I wanted for dinner. That usually means, "What are you going to cook for dinner?" so I said, "I don't know" and walked away. About twenty minutes later, I asked him what he wanted, and he said we could have that pasta and a salad. Fifteen minutes later, we were eating pasta and a salad. I heated up the sauce, cooked half a box of Gia Russa whole wheat angel hair (three minutes flat), and stepped out onto the front walk to snip some micro greens. I tossed them with a little onion, a little shallot, some kalamada olives, and a dressing of fig-flavored balsamic vinegar (from Olivier & Co. in Greenwich Village), olive oil, and a pinch of Dijon mustard. I threw on a few fat-free parmesan croutons et voila! dinner. Michael poured us each a glass of Gumdale Shiraz-Cabernet.
Ben said the sauce was so good it made him forget there was no meat in the meal, a perenniel complaint of his when we're trying to eat especially healthy. Michael said he was disappointed that there was only one jar of pasta sauce in the whole store. This might mean a road trip is in our future: there's a Marshall's in Ocean City and another in Rehoboth Beach. I love a man who loves to shop!