A Grocery Shopping Nightmare!

It’s about 1:00 p.m. on Tuesday afternoon and Liz (the Nanny) was here. I had errands to run, including grocery shopping. Dale decides to check the river level on riverbills.com when he sees that the river is going to jump up 8 feet. We decided that since Liz as here we would get the boat out of the river so it’s not stuck there. We get that done and there is no time left for getting groceries before Liz has to leave. I didn’t have a ton of stuff to get so I decided to fill the purse with fruit snacks and take the boys grocery shopping with me. I should’ve known how bad it was going to be in the very beginning when I was getting them out of the car. Nobody wanted to hold hands because they each were holding on to a toy that they HAD to bring with them. (Of course there were no carts out, I always seem to time my trips right after they brought the carts in!) I should have gone home right here! I finagle them inside and they run to the car carts. Levi was my helper this time and sat up in the cart and Will and Max were sitting in the car part. We get into the produce aisle (yes that is the 1st aisle in the store) and Max is throwing a full blown tantrum because the horn on his side of the car was broken. “Fix it, Broken, Fix it” is all I am hearing with screams and flails from Max. I convince Will to switch with Max by bribing them with the first package of fruit snacks. Not a good sign since we are in aisle One! They finish their fruit snacks in record time and I am now in the salad dressing aisle (the second or third aisle). I am looking for something in particular and can’t find it. I look back at the cart and Levi’s shoes are off and his shirt is over his head baring his chest. Package #2 of fruit snacks. That gives me another 30 seconds of undisturbed shopping. Next Will and Max are hanging out of the front of the car poking their heads out the front, the sides and wherever else they could find a whole. I stop to try to finagle the seat belts on the cart because they are always broken. I was able to get Will’s to snap and had to tie Max’s. So now instead of poking out it is constant screams of “Get out” “Get out” “Get Down” by all of them. I had one last package of fruit snacks that bought me enough time to finish. I get the check out and there are only 2 lanes open and about 50 people. Max now worked his way out of the mock seat belt and was getting out. After fighting him for a while I decided to tell him that if wants to run away that is fine and someone else could take him home. By then a woman walks by and says”Oh my God”. Well now not only am I embarrassed I am pissed off. I know my kids are being terrible and I am almost out of here so keep your comments to yourself. I had plenty of comments I could have made to this trashy looking woman, but did I say them out loud, NO! So now I am trying to unload the groceries onto the belt when Max pushes the cart forward against the belt thing and it makes a farting noise. The boys start cracking up and saying “stinky”. The lady at the next checkout is trying to give them stickers so they will calm down as I pay. And apparently they wanted me to stay in the store longer because there was no bagger. I am frantically throwing my groceries into bags and rush out of there like there is no tomorrow. Moral of the story: Don’t go grocery shopping with your kids! But, you know someday in the near future I will have to do it again. But maybe, just maybe they will behave next time!