Excerpt from "Coming Up Short"

I have been working on a book which reflects on my experiences as a working mom. Just for fun, I thought I would include a brief excerpt from a chapter titled, "Ode to Mother Hubbard." It chronicles the perils of combining children and grocery shopping. Enjoy!

One of the things that I hate (and my children clearly love) about Albertson’s is the car carts. While the adult shops, the children can pretend they are driving. The cart comes complete with an enclosed cab, doors, and a steering wheel. The sheer excitement of such an experience can transform everyday children of seemingly moderate energy levels and average self-regulatory abilities into complete maniacs. Such was clearly the case today. What started out as the slightly annoying opening, closing and reopening of the doors on the cab followed by the inability to secure the latch over and over again soon turned into arm wrestling over the steering wheel seasoned with multiple attempts at riding the roof. It looked a little something like this: I would take a few steps, stop, and fix the latch. Grab some plums. Stop again, order a child off the roof and explain the hazards of riding on the roof. Take a few additional steps, pick out green onions. Stop, explain the hazards of riding on the roof and add in the comment about “the manager of the store will probably yell at you” to give things a little more weight. Turn around and head back to the oranges and bananas that I passed up while talking her down from the roof the first time. And so on and so forth... Half-way through the “quick” trip, the novelty of the car finally wore off and my oldest was now into asking for every item off the shelf. “Hey mommy! It’s the cereal bowls with the straws. We have pink and blue but we don’t have green. Can we buy that green bowl too, Mommy? Mommy… Mooommmmmy!!!!” By the time we made it up to the check out lane, simply put, I was fried and beginning to evidence dissociative-type behaviors. My eyes began to glaze over and the various grocery store noises faded and blended together. Having severely violated my threshold for time spent in split attention, the walls had begun to spin. “No you can’t have that gum.” “Yes I have my rewards card.” “Quit swinging on the bars!” “Plastic is fine.” “Because I said so.” “Quit poking your sister.” And on and on and on... We finally made it through the checkout stand and headed for the door only to be accosted by some over-zealous store clerk informing us that the car carts must remain in the store. Failing to comprehend why the bagger would load my many groceries into a cart that I would only be permitted to use for the next 10 feet, I gave up my pursuit for that which is logical, pulled up to a normal cart and began to transfer my things. It was only a matter of moments until I discovered my oldest had vacated the immediate proximity and could be observed surfing the roof of a car cart buried deeply amidst the aisles of carts. “What on earth are you doing? Get over here!” Having scaled a number of cars to make it back that far, I waited for what seemed like an eternity, wincing as she made her way back, “Please don’t fall and crack your head!”
With the groceries reloaded to an outside cart, she finally made it back and we prepared to exit the store. The automatic doors swung open as we were promptly greeted by a litter of little girls, “Would you like to buy some Girl Scout Cookies?” Recollecting that I had charitably promised to buy some on my way out, I ignored the overwhelming evidence that I was no longer fit for public and should be making a bee-line for my car. I headed for their table. The table was set up with several young girls and their mothers. As I moved toward the table, wisdom’s hushed whisper escalated to a scream, “Just get in the car! You can get cookies another time. You are on your very last nerve. Warning!! Abort mission for cookies. Abort!” Having never been fantastic at deviating from my plan or my word, I smacked upside the head the mini-me with wings who sat upon my shoulder and continued toward the cookies.