Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Careful where you put your toes..and your cart



When you have your own toddler do you suddenly regress into an ape or a dinosaur or some amoeba or something and only think constantly of survival and nothing else?

I know, I know, the first thing coming to your mind right now is confusion. Or that unpleasant kind of laughter that comes before you know why you're laughing. People with toddlers? Hostile? How silly. But see what happens next time you and Lanee are at the WalMart peacefully checking out the tea/dried foods/something else aisle and you leave Lanee's cart two inches over the big important courteous middle line of the aisle because you're distracted for a second twirling around being silly. Some obnoxious young dad on a super hardcore mission to find gerber graduates for his precious starving toddler will come barreling into your comrade's cart with a very strategically placed diagonal hit from the hard plastic edge of his cart handle. Your cart goes flying, not to mention, runs over your toe. The guy'll huff and puff by you, flying down the aisle, somehow having positioned his precious toddler in the front seat so crumbs of precious spitty crackers dance sporadically into the air that you later crumble and pick, dried now, from your bangs.
Superdad rolls his eyes as hard as is physically possible while shuffling off at superhuman speeds to find the precious nutrition for his precious starving two-year-old who is sitting in the cart looking very precious. Also looking very contented and round, licking his tiny lips. He yawns. As if he just ate a small animal, or a gallon of ice cream. He's got sharp teeth and a vicious high-pitched cackle. These combined with drool and a striped t-shirt are frightening, to say the least.

I'm not seeing any ribs sticking out on this toddler, here. He's a fittest survivor. He could probably have me handcuffed to the gravy mix rack in five seconds and have gnawed my arm off in another seven.

So, Mr. Big Important Breadwinner Dad Man, I'm glad you are off so enthusiastically to rip from the shelves the bread you have won, but

A. Calm the heck down.
B. Your baby is fine.
C. The WalMart is not even on fire.
D. You're getting everything for cheaper here so stop STRESSING everybody OUT AROUND you.
E. Get the kid's teeth filed down. Scary.

F. Give those of us just becoming accustomed to aisle/cart etiquette and boundaries a little second.
G. You hurt my toe.

6 comments:

misc. said...

oh man I would just like to thank you for this post. I love having a hectic day full of stress and turmoil and then reading your latest post it just has an amazing calming effect ;). its tranquility helps me to calm down and get myself in a forgiving mood ;p thank you for the words.

Liesl said...

That was rather delightful to read, Julie. I've never had that experience, and hope to never will. Knock on wood.

Unknown said...

I'm not supposed to tell anyone this, but when you take your first kid in for their 18 month checkup they teach you the all-important shopping cart pit maneuver, along with the words to the Wonder Pets theme song and how to hide things like spinach and wheat germ in otherwise normal food in order to increase the chances of your child becoming the next Mary Lou Retton. They do warn you to use the pit maneuver only in the most dire of circumstances (precious starving children?), but I think people get hung up on the wheat germ and forget that part.

† Brycrasch said...

Oh no confusion here. You know where I work... parents of small children are retarded. I have never seen so many bad parenting decisions in my life till I got here.

A.J said...

ouch!Chek out my blog at www.abbygaylia.blogspot.com

alisha said...

f that man.
if i ever encounter one of his kind, i'll punch them in the face. or at least give them a wretched school teacher scorning.