This is a re-publish from our Sports & Stationery blog I used to write. It popped up on my “On This Day” feature on Facebook and I thought it was a good one….Originally written on Friday, August 7, 2015. QMonster was 3 at the time.
In true mom fashion, I wait until Thursday to go get the bananas. I get Quin from school, we go see his Poppy for a bit and then we head to Publix. The trip was supposed to go like this: Walk in, get Q situated in the “race car” cart, go to the bakery and get Q one of the cookies they give the kids to keep them quiet during the shopping trip, go get dinner from the deli (BTW, best fried chicken ever comes from Publix deli. Try it! Real talk!), swing by the banana section, let Q count out 10, go pay, get in the car, go home. That is how it was SUPPOSED to go. Obviously, I was delusional to think it would go anything like that. Here is how it actually went:
Walk into Publix, look at the carts and discover not a single race car cart is there, Quin proceeds to check every cart because he doesn’t believe me that there isn’t a cart to drive, asked him if he wanted to ride in the back of a regular cart, he tells me “no” with an undertone that implied “Hell no & don’t ask me again!”, tell him he can walk and hold my hand, pick-up a basket and enter the store. THIS is where the story gets real good. We head to the bakery to get the cookie. We get to the counter and I tell the worker Quin wants a cookie. He asked me what kind so I ask Quin if he wants a sugar or chocolate chip cookie. Well, like a moth to a light, Quin got mesmerized by the loaves of bread in the case and starts telling me he wants bread. No cookie! BREAD! BREADDDDD! Oh man, I had a moment of panic that must have showed on my face because the worker was like “here we have the slices of bread that he can have” and hands Quin a slice of bread. THANK YOU BAKERY WORKER! You just saved me $7. So we continue on to the deli, hand in hand, I have the basket in my other hand, Quin has his bread held up high like a 1st place trophy.
“I’ll have the 8-piece chicken, a large mac n cheese, and a large side of green beans.” The deli worker must have missed the sense of urgency in my voice when I placed my order…Hello, toddler standing next to me, eating bread, will turn to a monster when he runs out of bread…get the goods and hand them over ASAP! Worker: “Ma’am do you want to do the family meal?” Me: “uhm sure?” Worker: “Ok”…”Wait”…at this point he walks away. He walks over to another worker and said “can she get the hot sides with the family meal?” At this point, I am biting my tounge, because what I want to say is “Sir, I don’t care about the meal deal that may save me a $1, just charge me regular price” but I don’t…mainly because at this point Quin is zoning in on some colorful jello cup thing they have sitting there and I am doing my best to make sure we don’t end up having to buy the jello. The deli worker goes back to the counter and starts on my order. Not bashing the worker, seriously I am not, but Quin could have counted out 100 pieces of chicken faster than this guy counted out 8 pieces. During this forever and a day process, I am spinning in circles, holding tightly to Quin as he goes around and around looking for something to touch. He zones in on muffins….he finishes his bread and insist we walk “this way” so we head “this way” and get to the muffins. He starts trying to open the freshly baked 4 pack of muffins saying “Chocky cake”….How much are they? $3.99…ok you got me….so we open the muffins, I hand him the top half off the muffin and put the rest in our basket. We head back to the deli counter….spin in circles a few more minutes, and finally, FINALLY!, we get our dinner.
I am done at this point, irritated, dizzy, hungry, and really waiting on my ticking time bomb eating “chocky cake” to explode….but we came for bananas so we have to get them. We get the bananas. Quin counts them out and we head to checkout. I put my items on the counter, even being nice and taking them all out of basket, though looking back I should have just set the basket on the belt and been done with it. While the cashier is ringing me up, Quin spots a balloon and starts squealing saying “balloon”….well, he got the damn “Happy Birthday” balloon for 2 reason…1) it bought me a few more minutes before the bomb went off and 2) he actually said balloon clearly rather just “loon” like he used to say and good speech should be rewarded! I am trying to pay when I hear “ma’am, do you want to use one of these to wipe his nose?” I turn around and look at this cashier standing there holding LYSOL WIPES up like she just found the golden egg at the Easter egg hunt. I turn and look at Quin and yep, his nose is running but he is so engrossed with his balloon that he doesn’t care. I turn back to her and I know my face said “are you fucking serious?” but apparently she read it as “What are you talking about?” because she said “His nose is running” while looking at Quin and taking the lid off the Lysol wipes. Luckily my filter jumped over my mouth and changed my thoughts into nice words. I simply said “Thanks but those are disinfecting wipes made for cleaning stuff, not kid’s faces.” Then just to complete the trip I turned back to Quin and said “Q, wipe your nose buddy” and without checking up from the balloon, he pulled his shirt up, and wiped his nose. I finished paying, got my bags, and left. We made it to the car and got all tucked inside with out any real note worthy experiences.
Was it gross that Quin used his shirt to wipe his nose? YES IT WAS. IT WAS GROSS. BUT, we live in the moment and at that moment we didn’t have another option. We didn’t bring our bag of tricks in because it was supposed to be a quick trip…in and right back out was the game plan. Was it weird that my kid wanted bread rather than a cookie? Yep. Would I have purchased the whole damn loaf to avoid a meltdown? You betcha! Why are kids so expensive? Because my “quick trip” with my kiddo tacked on an extra $8 to my total ($4 muffins and a $4 balloon)…imagine that every time you go ANYWHERE.
Hot Mess Momma Club 