Walmart

Spouse-the-Awesomest-Person-Ever-at-Calling-When-He-Is-Away (which means in the last seven years he has called me A LOT), is away.  And yesterday, maybe even the day before, we were running pretty low on our most essentials, yogurt and cereal.  No yogurt?  No cereal?  Give me a feeding tube. 

I tried putting off a trip to the store as best I could, but the missionaries are coming tomorrow.  And also I really can't offer plain cheerios as the only cereal to my kids three days in a row.  As blah of a person as I am, I do feel uncomfortable being that blah.

So today was four kids and a Walmart day.

But it went well.  It went beyond well.  It went really well.  Well, except for one little incident - but that was my fault.  I was pushing our overloaded-with-three-different-kinds-of-cheerios cart down the paper towel and toilet paper aisle with CK pushing SKS in her wheelchair behind me, Baby Girl in the Baby Bjorn on me, and LL sitting in the cart, when I rammed a specially displayed box of about thirty cans of Pam with my front bumper. 

Pam cans whizzed through the air like shrapnel,  then landed on the floor and popped their red tops which went skidding to the far reaches of everywhere.

I'm pretty sure the people in front of me and behind me who saw it were like, "Did that lady with too many kids really just bull ram that display case?  Oh...my...gosh.  Holy cow, and does that kid who is pushing the kid with the broken leg in the wheelchair have a broken arm too?  I better get out of here quick before she does something to me."

I said, "Oh Darn."  I shudder to think what I would have said if it was CK who had caused the accident or SKS or LL.  I would've probably would have wagged my finger and been like, "Oh my goodness.  You  need to watch where you are going!  Look at this mess!"  But since it was me I just gave it a bland, little, "Oh Darn," and went to trying to reconnect Pam cans with their lost little red tops.  CK, my little champ, came over and helped me like the good boy he is.  LL tried to direct me to tops for cans from his in-cart vantage point.  A Walmart worker saw me and she went straight to work helping me clean my mess with nary a word to me.  Who knows what kind of well-deserved cuss words she was saying in her head about me, though.  Then a nice lady with her own couple of kids in the cart came in and retopped cans along with us.  It was one of those humanity-is-awesome moments for me.

The Walmart lady silently hustled the whole box of Pam cans away when we were done cleaning.  I hope to the highest heaven that she didn't have to dispose of all of those cans just because they blew their red tops.  And if the cans do still get to be sold, I also hope that a shaken up Pam doesn't do what a shaken up 7-UP does once it is opened.  Although if it does do what a 7-UP would do I kind of wish I could see each Pam can explode at first use as long as nobody is injured and all folks who experience a violent Pam have a good sense of humor.

Anyway, the reason I think this shopping trip went so well is because CK had a responsibility.  And a CK with a responsibility is a wonderous thing.  He steps up to the plate.  Well - that and the silliness of an SKS is seriously bound when it rides in a wheelchair.

SKS has mentioned before that when she gets her cast off she wants to keep her wheelchair.  It might not be a half-bad idea.