Saturday, May 24, 2008

Shopping with 1 husband and 2 kids = HELL

The family went shopping today. Yes, we stupidly went shopping on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend. Not my idea. My husband (aka Smug Dad) (and better known to me as PITA - pain in the a$$) bought a new computer, so he wanted to move his old computer to the family room. And that, of course, necessitated buying a desk for the old computer to put in the family room. Which meant that we had to go shopping.

My husband, of course, cannot go shopping by himself. Even with specific instructions. I think he does it just to prove that he can't go shopping, but he always comes back with the WRONG THING, and then a whole bunch of something else we don't need. Send him to the store to get toilet paper, and he'll forget the toilet paper (despite a written list) and come back with 2 pounds of strawberries and 4 tubes of toothpaste. I truly do not know what goes on in his mind.

"Where's the toilet paper?"

"Oh. I forgot."

"That's what you were supposed to get."

"I got toothpaste. And some strawberries for the kids." He says this proudly. As if I should give him a gold star. And I'm trying to hunt down some baby wipes or something else I can use so I can just go to the bathroom.


So, back to the story, I mean who goes shopping with the ENTIRE family on Memorial Day weekend? Especially with a husband that HATES TO SHOP (unless it is for tools). Not my idea of a good time. And we weren't doing any light shopping - we tackled Ikea. 1 cranky mom, 1 smug dad, 1 Karate-crazed 5 year old boy and 1 Princess. In Ikea.


We head up the 2 story outdoor escalator.


"Mama, has anybody fallen off?" asks son. I don't know. I'm trying not to think about it as my son leans precariously over the rail to see just how far down it is.


We wind our way through IKEA to the office section. My daughter and son devise a new game that involves scooting around on the chairs with wheels while I try desperately to round them up into some semblance of polite behavior. Another mom smiles knowingly at me.

"I have to go potty," says the Princess. One bathroom trip down. Meet up with PITA and son. They have picked out the desk, but have not written down where it is located in the self serve section of IKEA. Back to the office section to figure out what aisle and bin selected desk is in. Find it, get in line, another potty trip, this time with son.

We go to lunch at Charo Chicken. I get 2 potty trips with Princess and 1 potty trip with son. I don't know why I always get the bathroom trips in public. But I do. When we are cleaning up, PITA says he has to go the bathroom and I sweetly ask if he needs an escort too. I get an eye roll.

Then we head to the mall portion to get son new clothing and Princess new underwear. The mall has a play area, so PITA and my adorable children head to play while I tackle Old Navy. Old Navy has shorts for my son, but does not have pink underwear for the Princess. The Princess will only wear pink or ponies. That is all. So, I go next door to The Children's Place. Which does not have underwear, but has plain white bike shorts that I get for under dresses. But, the sales associate ringing up customers is extremely SLOW. And that is an understatement. How hard can it be to ring up customers? Pretty hard when you obviously can't do simple math and rely on the computer to do all the work. Apparently, if you type in the wrong amount of cash you received from the customer and the customer tries to give you back the extra money you gave in change, it must be the customer that is wrong, not you & the computer. Let's see - it was $18.32 and I gave you $20.32, but since you typed in $200.32, I should get back $182 isntead of $2? I like the math, but . . .

Escape the store and head over to children and PITA. "Where were you? Did you go window shopping? What took so long?"


Hmm, yeah. That's what I was doing. I went strolling and window shopping. And then I got my nails done. Which, if you know me, I never do. Actually, what I was doing was contemplating how far I could get with that $182 before I got dragged back to my life.

My husband: "You know, it was getting a little hectic here. The kids were just running around screaming, and it is sure loud with all these kids. I think I need a nap."

I should have taken that $182 and run.

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