The Grocery Store Diaries 7

You have your hands full: Two!
Bless your heart: One! I know it! In the north!
Damage Control: Lowell threw his passy once and Kenneth tried to climb out without help, but fortunately, he didn't hurt himself, the groceries, or his baby brother.
Dirty looks: One woman who must not have any tolerance for children, especially ones who decide to dance in the aisle.

My actual trip was all right, all things considered. Therefore, I am hijacking my own post:

I love cable television shows. I really, really, love cable shows. My husband and I started this during the graduate school years, when we could stay up all night on weekends watching Sopranos episodes from Blockbuster while other twenty somethings were out getting trashed. The only non-cable show I enjoy right now is the Office. I have heard great things about many programs, but there is just something a little better about the quality of writing in a cable show. Who knows exactly why?

Sunday night, Showtime aired their season finale of Dexter. I am not going into details on that show, because people love or hate it. I will say that John Lithgow had a one season role and he will be missed and never forgotten. As a tribute to him and a way to say "Thank you" for a wonderful season of Dexter, I am linking the grocery store scene from Terms of Endearment for everyone's viewing pleasure. Take a moment to watch and then keep reading, but the bad language was not edited from the clip.

I am not a big Terms of Endearment fan. Deborah Winger and Shirley Maclaine drive me crazy with their obnoxious fighting. The husband makes professors look like scum. Jack Nicholson will be Jack Nicholson. I am dumbfounded as to how Deborah's character could stay at home with three kids while her husband was still working on the PHD, but maybe that was just Reaganomics. Someone should explain it to me later.

As much as I can not stand that movie, I love that scene. It's a grocery store diary! I have never run out of money at a grocery store, but I always have this fear I'll open my purse and my wallet will be sitting on the kitchen counter. I have snapped at my children in public. Usually it involves keeping one of them from doing something dangerous or finally deciding I am not buying three boxes of cheerios just so that they can each have their own. I have given in and bought junk food that I shouldn't have. I'm sure that people have changed check out aisles or rolled their eyes when they have seen us coming. There is only so much crying, begging, and dragging of boxes that childless people should have to take. Deborah Winger's Emma is taking criticism not only from the annoyed cashier, but her older son is old enough to know what is going on. How much worse could it get? Don't answer that.

Then in the middle of her humiliation, John Lithgow comes out of nowhere to save the day (and help her get even with her idiot husband later, but that isn't the point). The right people fairy came in the form of John Lithgow-and he let the cashier have it with a little more control. Nice.

This grocery store diary is dedicated to John Lithgow as Sam from Terms of Endearment, because to give him a Dexter post would be way too morbid for my readership. I hope that all moms out there who have a bad grocery store day have a "Sam" to help them out.

Keep up the good work Mr. Lithgow. Be it saving the day in the grocery store, preaching the gospel to teenagers that just want to have a prom, or killing somebody's wife in a bath tub, you do it well!!!