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Morning confessions, afternoon daydreams, and evening wind-downs. |
| In the beginning someone gave me this profound hatred of shopping. I hate shopping. Really, there's no other thing in the world that I hate more than going to the store. Supermarkets, Pharmacies, and especially Walmart. I truly, truly hate Walmart, but yesterday evening, I was forced against my will to go to that dreaded place. And I have to interrupt this real fast just because I just stopped my kid from stuffing quarters in her pants... yeah... kids... (This will happen a lot, not the money stuffing, but the whole interruption thing) Anyway, I recently returned home from a 48 day trip between Detroit and Harrisburg for work. Now, what I'm about to get to has been an ongoing thing since we first purchased this house two years ago. When we first moved in, we had a nice set of silverware. Not lovely or extravagant, but nice. As my trips sent me across the country and back home, I began to notice that more and more of my spoons had gone missing when I returned. Where did they go? She still won't tell me. I'm starting to think there's a Lobelia Sackvile-Baggins stealing all of my spoons... At any rate, this last trip I returned from, I came home to one single spoon that just so happened to be in the sink. Now, aside from shopping, my second most hated thing is dirty dishes. I had a pile of them, but I didn't say anything, I was just glad to be home. She's pregnant anyway, and arguing about dirty dishes isn't a great way to get welcomed home. Well, I have a thing for shredded wheat. They should put me on their box. Really, that's how much shredded wheat I eat. Anyway, I had a big craving for it in the morning, and well... there was no spoons. I'm not about to try to eat it with a fork, or with my hands, so I just sucked it up and did the dishes. Following my good scrubbing, and very meticulous placement of dishes in my drainer, I enjoyed a wonderful bowl of shredded wheat. As the spoon came to my lips, my eyes fell on it, glistening in my dim living room lights, my one and only spoon. My connection to the deliciousness of a great cereal, and realized, I need more spoons if I wish to live a normal life at home. I shook my head and sighed as I resolved myself to go to Walmart and get myself some new silverware. With my kid in my arm, and her thousand pound diaper bag in the other, I fussed with that annoying five-point harness in her car seat. I always had a hard time with those. Well, after about twenty minutes of getting the thing wrapped around her to my satisfaction of child safety, I got in and started the car. I love my car. In my world, it is one of my prized possessions. It's not some classic GTO, or Fairlane or anything like that. Nope. It's a 07 Chrysler 300. Candy apple red, two-tone leather interior that just screams when the kid gets in the car. Between drips of apple juice finding their way to the backseat, and goldfish crumbs working their way into the creases of my interior, there's this thing just scraping in my mind. I just absolutely go nuts when there's any amount of dirtiness in my car. Well, roughly a quarter mile into the trip I heard that baggy go upside-down and those goldfish spilled out onto my backseat. I nearly wrecked the car in panic. Thank goodness there wasn't a cop behind me, because I definitely would have had to do a sobriety test. Calmly, I turned my car around and took it to the carwash. A tear nearly fell down my cheek as I pulled up alongside that super vacuum they have there. I hate spending $1.50 for six minutes of cleanliness, but I was in dire straits. My kid has always loved vacuums, so it was a fun thing for her to watch me curse under my breath as I took great care not to let that tube touch my pristine leather. Sucking up the cause of my distress, the six minutes weren't nearly long enough. I heard that vacuum die down, and the sucking power faded away, allowing hundreds of cheesy destroyers to careen back down the tube and back onto my seats. I turned into Ralphie's dad from "A Christmas Story" at that moment. Spewing out a tirade of uninterpretable obscenities as I fished for another six quarters, knowing I'd only need about another two minutes. I'm sure there were people there looking at me and considering calling up the local authorities as I kicked and punched imaginary things, but at any rate, the car was clean again. The door shut, and the car started with its signature 'beep beep beep' that it does. I put it in reverse, and then heard another beep. What was this? This was a new beep, and that couldn't be good. Eyes darted about the dash indicators and I saw it... Low tire pressure. NO! NO! NO! Again, Ralphie's dad possessed me as I pulled up to the air compressor, my kid clapping and singing some imaginary tune involving goldfish, fruit snacks and bears... I don't know where the bears came from. I opened up my center console, and slid out four quarters from my change holder. Yeah... a dollar for air. AIR IS ALL AROUND US AND ITS FREE!!! Somehow, however, some guy decided that it was worth charging for, so long as it needed to go into your tires. I circled around the car, putting my pressure gauge to each tire, until of course, I found it on the fourth try. Why is it always the last one? Well, I filled it to a perfect 32.5 PSI, having to let out some air every now and then from overfilling, but at least I didn't need to put more quarters in. I wrapped the hose back up and got back in the car. I looked in my rear view mirror, and there was something missing from the back seat. No, not my kid, and not the car seat. It was her sippy cup... Oh... my... god... no... Unbuckling my seat belt, I fished around the backseat in absolute panic as I slid my hand beneath the seats, trying desperately to find it before apple juice spilled out onto my carpets. My kid watched me the whole time saying, "Daddy's Silly," as I practically dove into the backseat of the car, but I found it. I sat it in my front seat cup holder and thanked my maker, for it was dry! And we were now on our way to Walmart. We pulled in, and she insisted that we get one of those carts that look like cars. No problem, except they are about two thirds too long, and they don't maneuver well in the aisles, and this close to thanksgiving, I'd need excellent mobility to weave between customers. I tried to reason with her, but their is no reasoning with a two year old. As folks walked by, watching me discussing this dilemma with my kid, I began to think they thought I might be a little odd, so I conceded. If for any reason, just to end this ordeal. As I expected, folks were out in force in every aisle of the store. These aren't your everyday customers at the supermarket, these are browsers. When I say browsers, I mean they are the slow-walkers, stopping at every special, every half off, every clearance, and every display and inspecting each of them as if they were some auditor looking for a non-comformity. That sort of thing just really grinds my gears, as I'm on a mission and this mission doesn't have time for browsers. Somehow, I found myself behind the old couple. Now I have no problem with elderly couples, because I think they are truly adorable, but they aren't fast moving shoppers like myself. I can't simply cut into the left half of the aisle, as I treat cart courtesies the same way I treat traffic laws, and that would be an illegal lane change as far as I'm concerned. I had to hit the e-brake this time... My kid added to this ordeal as she continued to call the old man "her." Everyone is "her" in her world. Well, I'm sure I was red faced, as it seemed he heard her, and turned round and smiled at her. They both took her in like she was the most gorgeous thing they'd ever seen, shrugging aside the "hers" and "Hi Grammas." They were kind enough to tell me how adorable she was as they made way for this lumbering truck of a cart. We came to the aisle I was looking for. Utensils. Somehow, the couple had turned on their afterburners and came up on us as I inspected each set, cursing at their price under my breath. As I held one closer, my daughter told me that she liked forks and well, I do too, but it was a weird thing to say. The elderly couple laughed and asked her age. I told them she was two, and they said they had never met such a well-spoken toddler. Well what can I say? It has to be genetics right? At any rate, I was dumb enough to go to the self-checkout, and of course my kiosk had a malfunction in between the scanning and bagging part. I waited there, watching families scan their groceries and moving on... waiting. I waited for an eternity in that holiday chaos until finally, a dear lady came to my kiosk and apologized for my wait. Don't apologize... It's busy, and I used to work at this place. I understand. She punched in whatever code would fix the issue, and then directed me on the use of the self checkout... I know how to use the self checkout. I put in the 45 dollars it required and took my receipt. As I exited the store, that old couple was outside, making their way to their car. They gave my daughter a wave and a smile as I lumbered past in that enormous cart. And it came to me then... all of this, over a spoon. Perhaps I get a little too hyper... perhaps I overreact to simple stuff, but we only had one spoon. That evening, my fiancé was ready to help herself to some of my famous Ratatouille. (It's not that famous, but I like to pretend that I'm on a cooking show while I'm cooking.) She placed a healthy portion onto her plate and opened our silverware drawer. She turned around and kissed me as though I'd just given her some twenty thousand dollar ring. "I love these!" I have to admit, I love them too, but if she only knew what I went through to get them. But, a show of affection over spoons was good enough for me. And now here we are, now enjoying a good stew with our lovely new spoons and our lovely daughter, awaiting our lovely new bundle of love; content and preparing for our holiday. One day I'll find time to get back to my NaNovel; hopefully this weekend but until then, treasure those little things as I do. Enjoy your evening folks. |
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