Paper or Plastic

Buying groceries is always a chore, but when I have to take the kids, it can be a major undertaking. Some days, all goes well. I’m prepared with a list and a bag of goodies to keep the boys busy, and we are in and out in record time. The biggest decision of the outing is paper or plastic. Other times, like today, I’m unprepared and the kids are wired, and Murphy’s Law automatically goes into effect.

It isn’t enough that children seldom fail to cause a scene on grocery day, but supermarkets have now chosen to provide parents with massive, hard to turn, barely-will-roll, “look at me” carts that scantily have enough room for the items we need to purchase, forget the fact that it doesn’t do us any favors in our efforts to blend in. Here’s a visual.

A large, blue, semi-truck/grocery cart is weaving down the aisle. You, the innocent shopper, laugh when you see the two kids inside, driving the pretend steering wheels and making racecar sounds as they go. Orange, Cheeto-cheese is smeared all over their hands, faces, and clothes. You see that the woman, hair frazzled, face set, is trying to read a poorly-written shopping list that she must have written in the car on the way over. You wonder for a moment why she is parked in the middle of the isle, until you see another shopper try to squeeze by. The mother moves her vehicle into the right-hand lane to let the shopper pass, and milliseconds later you hear a stack of cans crash to the ground. Cheesy fingers are fast. You watch as the woman quickly picks up the mess on the floor and scolds the boys for not keeping their hands inside the cart. A look of relief comes across her face as she sees the large, glass jars of pickles that were a near miss. She maneuvers back onto the center line. You hate to be caught staring, so you continue to do your own shopping, thinking to yourself, “Man, she’s really got her hands full.”

A few minutes later you hear little kid laughter, and there is really nothing like a belly laugh from a little boy, so you make your way to the next aisle to see what is so funny. There is that same mom and her two little boys who now both have Cheetos crammed up their noses. You feel your own belly laugh coming on, because let’s face it, that’s pretty funny when it’s happening to someone else, but you turn your head so the mother doesn’t see because of course she won’t be laughing one bit. The mother decides to ignore the whole scenario, which you decide is probably a good idea, seeing as how these boys look pretty ornery and they still have a half bag of Cheetos left.

The woman drives on, and you decide to tail her for a while, since you haven’t had this much fun shopping in years. You hear snippets of motherly chiding like, “Keep your hands to yourself.” “Stop touching your brother.” And your favorite, “Quit picking your nose.”

You notice that while the shopping cart is exhilarating for the boys, there really isn’t much room in there for groceries. The basket is getting full, and the woman is only half way through the store. The Cheetos are long gone and the little one keeps trying to escape, so the mother grabs a bag of pretzels out of the cart to try and appease him. The two boys send that truck a rockin’ with their excitement, and as they do, the entire family-size bag of pretzels spills to the floor. The frustrated mother lets out a sigh as she notices a crabby older woman staring at her and shaking her head at the mess that has been strewn about the aisle. The mom does her best to clean it up, but the pretzels are everywhere-including the bottom of her purse-and the lack of motion has again sent the boys into escape mode. You can tell from the mother’s face that she knows it is fight or flight, so she chooses to flee from her littered wreckage and attempts to finish the rest of her shopping. You follow her lead.

As fate would have it, you find yourself cruising for beef just as the big, blue semi is doing the same. You try to make eye contact with the mother to let her know that her life will get better, but you can see that she is beyond being comforted by a stranger in a meat market. A third vehicle strolls by with a very well-spoken little girl at the helm. She says to her driver, in a loud and obnoxious manner, “Hey, Daddy, that lady is wearing boy shoes.” The mother looks down at her feet, raises her eyebrows…and peels rubber.

Just as you think you have seen the last of that fast moving truck, you look across to see that it is being checked out at the register beside you. You see that the older child has somehow squeezed inside the tiny basket and is handing items, one-by-one, to the impatient checker. As you admire the helpfulness of the little tyke, you spot his younger brother escaping from the cab, settling into the driver’s position, and attempting to maneuver the entire grocery cart away from the checkout stand. Had that mother not looked up from her purse, those boys would have been half way to California. As luck would have it, though, they only made it about 50 feet before she was able to run them down.

As the bedraggled mother and her two lively, little ones made their way out the door, you realize what a pleasant time you’ve had shopping today. In an instant, you try to recall the difficulties of your own day and suddenly they don’t seem so grand. After all, you’ve left your work at the office, or at least you should have. You think for a moment about the possibility that your life was like hers when your children were small, or that it might be some day when you start a family of your own. Suddenly you realize how lucky you are, and just about the time start to tell yourself that you’re really glad you aren’t that lady…your big, brown-eyed, newly, potty-trained baby brings you back to reality as he looks up at you and says, “Mommy, I just pooped my pants.”

You barely hear her when the checker asks, “Ma’am, paper or plastic?”

And that’s All in a day’s work!