I am so excited to be linking up today with my friends Kate of Can I Get Another Bottle of Whine? and Janine of Janine’s Confession’s of a Mommyaholic for the first ever Finish the Sentence Friday Blog Hop! Each Friday there will be a different sentence to finish in our own creative ways…check out the link to read what other bloggers have come up with this week. If you are a non-blogger reading this, feel free to leave your own contribution in the comment section!
Today’s prompt: “I went to the grocery store the other day and…”
I went to the grocery store the other day and remembered too late why I had decided to never go shopping with my family again.
You see, it always starts out kind of fun; we point things out to our one year old and smile as she attempts new words and waves to people. I chat with my oldest daughter about ideas for her lunchbox that week. Then, after that 45 seconds has elapsed, it all goes terribly, terribly wrong.
The big girl starts to whine and complain about all the garbage food we are unwilling to buy for her. The toddler begins to writhe and screech. At some point we succumb to amnesia and think that it is a good idea to let her walk around for awhile. (Really? Is it your first day on the job, Mom and Dad?) This choice proves to be a poor one immediately, as she obviously begins to knock things off the shelves. Did we not see this coming? The six year old, filled with mirth and the desire to incriminate her hapless sibling, begins to egg her sister on, coaxing her to pick up more items from the feminine hygiene aisle.
What began as somewhat whimsical and entertaining has rapidly become embarrassing. Attempting to backpedal, we wrangle our infuriated toddler, who has now gone limp in an effort to foil our plans, back into the shopping cart so that she can scream and her sister can complain all the way to the mechanical horse- aka, the finish line.
You would think that having my husband there and having all hands on deck would outweigh the fact that we had both children with us. You would be wrong. (Sorry, hubby, truly, I love you.) The second we hit the produce section, our first stop, he starts to wander and I feel like barking, “You! Stay with the group!”
I am not kidding- I have never been grocery shopping with him without losing him for at least several minutes. Why is it so hard to stay together? It’s probably not an accident- likely he drifts away on his own so he can secretly stockpile cans of some crappy food like hominy that I hate but that are on sale and toss them discreetly into the cart when I am trying to wrestle the toddler back into a forward facing position.
Really- the only one who should go shopping is me. I try to buy only what we need for meals we are going to make in the imminent future, healthy and easy snacks for the girls, lunchbox choices for my oldest, and any household products that we happen to be out of.
This is what happens when he goes to the store for say, eggs and bacon for the next morning: he returns with 4 packages of ground chicken, (which I hate- really only good in tacos) cheap dinner rolls that we don’t need, 22 bottles of Gatorade, generic canned soup, 2 years worth of batteries, and a lifetime supply of corned beef hash. All because it was on sale.
Unfortunately, in my opinion, when you buy things on sale that you don’t actually need, or buy unnecessarily large quantities of food, you are not really saving money. Just sayin’. Departing soap box now. (Wow, I intended this post to be a rant on how irritating my children are at the grocery store. What happened?)
I should probably also mention one more item he generally comes home with- flowers for me. Although, perhaps not so much after reading this last post. (Hanging head in shame)
It is simply common logic that an excursion to the supermarket by myself would be more efficient and less vexing than the above debacle. But it is more than that- it is relaxing. In fact, I think going to Target by myself might even be classified as a leisure activity. See, I can stop by Starbucks, peruse the loungewear section, browse the literature department and shed a tear over days past when I actually read new books when they came out, you get the point. It’s fun. There’s nobody squawking, urgently needing to use the (disgusting) restroom twice in a half hour, hanging onto the edge of the cart, begging for things- there’s just me. Alone with my thoughts.
So remember ladies- savor that solo shopping time! Buy yourself a latte, stroll in silence, and take your ever-loving time. And the next time you feel tempted to go shopping with the whole entourage, repeat after me: “It’s more trouble than it’s worth.”
