The odds of going to the store for a loaf of bread and coming out with only a loaf of bread are three billion to one.
Interpretation
This quote humorously highlights the tendency of people to buy more than they intended when shopping.
Erma Bombeck's quote reflects the common experience of going to a store with a specific shopping list but ultimately succumbing to impulse buys and distractions, resulting in a cart full of items rather than just the original intention of purchasing a single loaf of bread. It captures the absurdity of shopping habits in a light-hearted way, suggesting that the chances of sticking to a simple shopping task are nearly impossible.
In practice
This quote can be used during a lighthearted conversation about shopping habits with friends.
We've got a generation now who were born with semiequality. They don't know how it was before, so they think, this isn't too bad. We're working. We have our attache' cases and our three piece suits. I get very disgusted with the younger generation of women. We had a torch to pass, and they are just sitting there. They don't realize it can be taken away. Things are going to have to get worse before they join in fighting the battle.
You hear a lot of dialogue on the death of the American family. Families aren't dying. They're merging into big conglomerates.
Making coffee has become the great compromise of the decade. It's the only thing "real" men do that doesn't seem to threaten their masculinity. To women, it's on the same domestic entry level as putting the spring back into the toilet-tissue holder or taking a chicken out of the freezer to thaw.
Not everyone is comfortable with the kissing ritual. My husband is one of them. Her refuses to press lips with anyone except his wife, mother, and dog. If someone wanted to give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, he would refuse until he had been formally introduced.
There's nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child.
Maybe age is kinder to us than we think. With my bad eyes, I can't see how bad I look, and with my rotten memory, I have a good excuse for getting out of a lot of stuff.
Why anybody gets my sense of humor I never know, but I do know that when they do, I keep them as close as I possibly can.
I always just forced myself to do crazy things in public. In college I would push an overhead projector across campus with my pants just low enough to show my butt. Then my friend would incite the crowd to be like, 'Look at that idiot!' That's how I got over being shy.
Commuter - one who spends his life In riding to and from his wife; A man who shaves and takes a train And then rides back to shave again.
I was the first woman to burn my bra - it took the fire department four days to put it out.
I've made so many people angry that they kind of blur into one unpleasant memory of people staring at you with somewhere between passive aggression and active aggression.
EMOTION, n. A prostrating disease caused by a determination of the heart to the head. It is sometimes accompanied by a copious discharge of hydrated chloride of sodium from the eyes.
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