The Grocery Store Diaries 10: Beer please.....

Dirty looks: Hmmm, about five
You've got your hands full:  Three, four if you count the man who collects the carts running over to help me ASAP.
Total damage: Lowell ate a couple of grapes and that changed the weight so I'll bet I owe the grocery store about half a penny.  Call the cops if you must.

Today was one of those days that you think everything is going fine, and then you end up buying another mother a six pack of beer.  Yes, I said six pack of beer. I bought it.  For another mom.  No joke.

My kids and I have our regular routine going just fine.  It starts in the parking lot.  All three of them feel a need to drag toys around the grocery store.  It can be a Barbie, a Spiderman figurine, or a Hotwheel car.  More than likely two out of three of them will scream to take a blanket in as well.  We say goodbye to most of the toys and then narrow down what we are taking in to one thing each.  That means we only had three things to search lost and found for later.

After we make it across the lot, they fight/decide who gets in what part of the obnoxious four seat grocery cart.  Then they fight over which aisle we are going to go down first because you know we absolutely must buy the apples on the other side of the store before we put the bread right by the entry way in our cart.  If the baby hasn't napped, you will hear crying and screaming up and down the aisles.  When he is sleep deprived he doesn't seem to understand that we have to pay for the food before we eat it. I suggest ear plugs on those days. Normal stuff for us-totally.

So I've had a little obsession lately about a television show called, "What Would You Do?"  The wonderful John Quinones sets up situations with actors and tapes people's reactions.   Once he had a saleswoman being very racist to some customers.  Another time he had an attractive woman trying to steal a bike.  It did not surprise me in the least when men started helping her.  It is one of those things that either makes you laugh hysterically or scares you to death.  Now my biggest fear is that John is going to pop out of nowhere and say, "Mrs. P, why didn't you stop the fight?  Why did you let the kid get into the car with the old man?  etc. etc.  I don't want to look like an idiot on television.  Well, for that anyway.  I'm always on the look out for these situations.

Today I sounded like my normal broken record, "Don't hit your brother!" "Don't stick your head out of the cart." "No, we can't buy three boxes of cookies." "Yes, Daddy knows we are buying that." Yadda Yadda Yadda.

I was walking down the soup aisle because despite the heat my daughter must have her chicken noodle, and I heard the patter of the little feet.  Nah, the patter of little feet is for newbie parents still in the honeymoon phase of a newborn that can do no wrong.  I heard a stomping toddler take off running on a frustrated mother. BUT- I saw all six of the feet that I gave birth to strapped in their cart????? Who was this kid?

Before I could look too hard, in a grocery store in Connecticut, a mother screams at her son, "GET YOUR ASS IN THE CART!"

Now let me tell you guys something.  I would have judged her severely ten, maybe even four, years ago.  But now I know that she had had all she could have and the kid kept running like the gingerbread man.  Then I remembered Quinones.  What was I going to do if he popped out from behind the aisle not only because I didn't say anything to her, but also because my kids were going to have strokes from all the chicken noodle soup?

So I played cool and turned my cart around, and by this time she had gotten him back in the cart but she was ranting  that she would spank him in front of the whole store if he did it again.  Then it came to me what I would want viewers of "What Would You Do?" to hear me say.  And I said it.  I didn't think, I just said it.

Wait for it....


"Sweetheart, if I promise to buy you a six pack for after he has gone to bed, do you promise to quit speaking to him that way now?"

Heineken....No Quinones though.  Maybe next time.....