My husband and I recently adopted the exciting habit of team grocery shopping - together. We don't go for many items at one time; I think that would be too much for our relationship to bear.

Our usual list might contain a handful of entries - milk, eggs, bread, pickles. That's about our limit. We're still in the rookie league. After decades of shopping solo (me) the prospect of a shopping buddy can be both exciting and terrifying - for both of us. We're starting things slow.

And still, problems ensue.

A couple weeks ago we went to get ingredients for homemade sausage pizza. This included Italian sausage. Experienced foodies will understand it is difficult, impossible even, to make sausage pizza without the sausage.

Once at the store, we sashayed over to the meat department, found the sausage (spicy, not mild) and made our purchase. We also had a few other items as noted above. Then we left.

Upon returning home, we unpacked our goods. There was pizza crust, tomato sauce and mozzarella, but no sausage. We looked in the backseat of the car, thinking it had fallen out of the bag, but the vehicle was sausage-less. As was our fridge, pantry, countertops and cupboards. Somehow, we'd lost our sausage.

We'll never know for sure, but we must have left it in the cart in the parking lot, making us victims - or perhaps perpetrators - of abandoned sausage syndrome. I'm sure some cart attendant got a good laugh out of that one.

Fast-forward seven days to our weekly grocery store date. This time dinner plans included guacamole, which necessitated a trip to the produce department. We squeezed the avocados with competence and enthusiasm to find the perfect one - not too ripe, not too hard. Then we followed the regular routine. Pay for food. Exit store. Return home. This time we were careful to check the cart to confirm it was void of any food products before returning it to the cart corral.

We were in the middle of dinner prep when we discovered our deficiency. I was assembling the ingredients needed to stir together my world-famous guacamole when I encountered the glitch. The avocado had gone AWOL.

We emptied the fridge. We searched the car. We scanned the counters and the cupboards and came up with a catchy phrase to describe our situation: "Holy moly, there'll be no guacamole." Sometimes it's better to laugh at your shortcomings. It takes your mind off the pitifulness (and guacamole-less-ness) of your predicament.

We questioned the usual suspects, but none of our sons would admit to eating an entire avocado. For once, I believed them.

We ate our meal with salsa, cheese, tomatoes and lettuce, but without a lick of guac. The avocado had, apparently, grown legs and walked, leaving us green with avocado envy.

Or not.

Because of the Italian sausage debacle, I knew we hadn't left the avocado in the cart. We may be absentminded, but we learn from our mistakes. That cart was empty when we exited the parking lot. I'd swear to it (if I swore).

And then, damn, it hit me. The avocado had to be somewhere in the house. I set out to find that thick-skinned, fat-laden berry. I was on a mission. A mission of failure.

It was actually my husband who did the eventual finding - and he wasn't even looking. He was replacing the roll of paper towels. The new roll, which we'd bought on that same, fateful, gone-missing avocado day, was still in the plastic grocery store bag, which contained not only the paper towels, but also our long-lost avocado.

Luckily the fruit wasn't overripe and was still in prime form for guacamole greatness. I stirred a bowlful together and it's in the fridge right now. There's only one problem. We are out of tortilla chips for dipping, so we'll have to make a trip to the store to buy some.

I just hope we can manage to make it home without losing them somewhere along the way.



- Jill Pertler's column appears Thursdays in the Times. She can be reached at pertmn@qwest.net.