it’s like shopping and a show
July 12, 2006
Dear my lovely sons,
Grocery shopping with all of you is always fun. I especially love the game you boys play. What game, you ask me with your eyes wide and innocent? The game I like to call, Try-To-Get-Strangers-To-Call-CPS-On-Our-Mother game.
You know the one I am talking about. The well orchestrated game where all of you wait for a crowd of people to be around us and then one of you will hold up something obvious, in the case of today, a banana and loudly say, “What is this? I have never seen this before!”
Then I will reply, “What are you talking about? Of course you have seen a banana before!”
And then one of you will say, “Baaaa-naaaaaa-naaaahhh” like you are a five year old struggling with phonics, and hold it up in the air for all your siblings to admire. And then those siblings will oooh and aaaah like you are holding the holy grail, or the newest Lego Bionicle, above your head.
I am always amazed at how well you all work together in these situations. At home trying to get you all to play a game of Clue, cards, or even sit on the couch near each other is an invitation for a wrestling match to break out that would make the WWF look tame.
I’ll say even louder, “What are you doing? You have so seen that before!” I will look around at all the people staring out of the corners of their eyes at me and laugh nervously.
Then one of you will loudly say, “No, Mom. We have never seen this…. what is it called again… oh yeah bananan before.” And the rest of you shake you heads in solidarity.
You boys are good, in a band of roguish brothers sort of way and I am oddly impressed. But you must remember that when it comes to perfecting your evil ways, I am your master. You still have much to learn my little grasshoppers.
And I say, “It’s a BANANA. A GOD FORSAKEN BANANA. And the reason you have never seen them before because the bananas will go bad in the basement where I keep you shackled to the drain pipes. Now let’s finish shopping.”
You will never win, though I love that you try,
Mom
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This reminds me of when I took my daughter out for a play date last week and the topic of swimming came up. She told the other mother, “I know about swimming lessons. Remember last year during Nicholas’ swimming lesson I ran away and you got really mad at me and then I got a pop. You did. You popped me on my butt real hard. I wouldn’t stay in time out. Ahhh, swimming. It’s lots of fun.” Thanks honey. Where are those chewy granola bars that are supposed to quiet talkive children when you need one.
July 12th, 2006 at 6:29 amYour kids are creative geniuses. But I love your response!
July 12th, 2006 at 6:50 amSo, what you’re saying is, the public humiliation we suffer does not end as they get older?
July 12th, 2006 at 6:55 amYou shackle yours to the drain pipe? I chain mine to the furnace. It’s a little quieter ’cause I don’t have to put up with the annoying sound of the shackles sliding up and down and up and down on the pipes. Damn kids.
I have all girls. The manner by which you humiliate girls is very different. Let me know if you ever need some advice there.
July 12th, 2006 at 6:58 amGee, how did you overhear my last shopping trip with my reluctant husband????…
July 12th, 2006 at 7:03 amOh, my God…
I thought nothing could top the kid who came up with the idea of the New Year’s Eve ball rolling off the building and crushing everyone in the crowd, but this has just so far surpassed it.
I can’t WAIT to hang out with these guys!
July 12th, 2006 at 7:04 amMy hero!
July 12th, 2006 at 7:46 amBanana=Bionicle
That is a great mental image.
Do they watch Sponge Bob, by chance? Sounds like something my kids would get from Bob and Patrick (this morning they were astronauts and thought all the bikini bottom people were aliens and captured them all in nets. Not that I was watching or anything)
July 12th, 2006 at 7:51 amI love your blog. Your life is hilarious in a keeping-my -distance Schadenfreude kind of way. You must never need to look for outside entertainment as you have physical exercise, adrenalin rushes and cabaret non-stop. Long may you prosper.
July 12th, 2006 at 7:58 amTeehee…this reminds me of my usual tack of telling the checker or the bagger to pretend she never saw me if the kids are found wandering abandoned in the parking lot. Sometimes the sarcasm goes over their heads. Obviously, they aren’t parents, right?
July 12th, 2006 at 8:08 amJust so funny.
July 12th, 2006 at 8:31 amomg do they really do this? at what age does this start… is it still safe for me to shop wit my kids?
you are so awesome
July 12th, 2006 at 8:51 amthey sound like very worthy adversaries!
July 12th, 2006 at 9:24 amMy mother never lets me forget the time we were in the grocery store and I was telling everyone I could see that she wasn’t my mother. My mother was DEAD and this was my sister.
Since I had my daughter 14 months ago I find my mother chuckling often to herself maniacally as she plays with my daughter. She will look at me and smile. “Just you wait.”
July 12th, 2006 at 10:19 amOMG! That’s great your kids work together so well…
July 12th, 2006 at 10:44 amKids are great, aren’t they?
I’ll never forget a few Christmas seasons when our family was at Wal-mart and I decided to go get their bazillions of toys off of layaway. My then-3-yr-old daughter was told to stay with Daddy while Mommy ran an errand. Well, she didn’t like that, and she took off (much to my oblivion) at a race-horse gallop after me.
After 20 MINUTES of frantic searching, my husband couldn’t find her, and he hesitantly went to the service desk to report her missing. (Hesitantly, because he knew I would FLIP OUT upon hearing this announcemnt over the intercom system.)
As he was heading to the counter, he spotted our daughter being led by the hand by an elderly woman whom he *somewhat* knew. He called out our daughter’s name, she looked at him, gave him a blank stare, and looked away. The woman said, “Is that your daddy, honey?” She very coldly says, “Nope, that’s not my daddy.”
I think he aged 10 years in that moment, and our daughter almost didn’t live to see her layaway goodies!
July 12th, 2006 at 10:50 amHILARIOUS!! You are so funny, I just read your other posts too. It’s good to have a sense of humor when dealing with delinquents, I mean children and Neanderthals, I mean husbands. LOL!!
July 12th, 2006 at 11:10 amIt must be something in the air!
July 12th, 2006 at 11:17 amI think I will get to be a pink comment box today hurray!
This is testament to the true evil geniuses you are raising….beware the day they best you…
July 12th, 2006 at 12:28 pmMWHHHHAAAAAAAAA
What fine team spirit and dramatic flair!
July 12th, 2006 at 12:39 pmMy sister used to sit in the grocery cart and say over and over, “Don’t feed me puppy chow! MOMMY don’t feed me puppy chow!”
Is this better or worse?
July 12th, 2006 at 1:48 pmI was a rotten little kid sometimes. One time my mom & I were in WalMart, and she turned towards me, and I gave a great big FLINCH like she was going to hit me. She has never hit me in my whole life hardly! Several people saw it too, and thought awful things of her! What a stinker I was!!
July 12th, 2006 at 2:56 pmHAHA! Brilliant, all of it..
July 12th, 2006 at 6:17 pmyour brilliant Chris,lol. Sounds like my oh so funny 12 and 10 year old boys. Now if we could only harness their dark gifts for good instead of evil.lol.
July 12th, 2006 at 6:30 pmMy grocery store experience is of my 6-year old son and 9-year-old daughter having slap hand-slap fights while I’m trying to push a blasted cart full of stuff around! Then, as soon as I tell them to stop, my son starts hitting himself in the head. Mind you, they rarely do stuff like that at home.
July 12th, 2006 at 6:55 pmEnjoying the blog, Chris!
As one of the children who used to do this type of thing to my mother, HA HA!
But the good thing is that I have 6 best friends as an adult that I am also fortunate enough to call my brothers.
July 12th, 2006 at 6:59 pmSo funny. At least they stick together, right?
July 12th, 2006 at 7:08 pmSo funny Chris. When my sister and I were little, we would fight with each other like cats and dogs in the store until my mom would pop one of our butts. Then the other one would yell as loud as she could “please don’t hit my sister again!” We were terrible to her, but it was sooo funny. Now that I have kids, not so funny.
July 12th, 2006 at 7:35 pmLOL! That reminds me of my dd, who in the course of shopping one evening ran into a lady who asked her if she liked school. She replied that she was a homeschooler so the lady asked if she enjoyed being homeschooled. She replied, “No, not really,” and made a horrific face. I about died right there, IT WAS SO NOT TRUE. But of course I am evil so once back in the car I threatened to send her to school, bwahhaahaha!
July 12th, 2006 at 11:36 pmI keep thinking I need to get some clear duct tape for certain occasions. Maybe if I move very quickly through my tasks, which should be easier if the kids can’t talk, nobody will notice the duct tape.
July 13th, 2006 at 7:24 amSounds like your kids are more creative than mine - mine just wait until we’re out in public and then begin wailing, “We’re HUNGRY? Why don’t you ever feed us?” (in spite of the $600 in groceries that vanish from this house every month)
July 13th, 2006 at 11:30 amThis is so funny! I can just imagine how this must look to anyone standing around. Only I wouldn’t be looking at them out of the corner of my eye . . . I’d be the one laughing out loud!
July 13th, 2006 at 7:30 pmLMAO, I think I want to be your kids when I grow up! Ingenius all of them!
July 14th, 2006 at 7:12 pmLOL!! I can’t imagine where the boys got their wicked sense of humor. No clue.
July 14th, 2006 at 8:21 pmWhen i was a little kid, my father took me grocery shopping. When we were in the checkout, I said brightly, “Daddy, are you going to give some of those good dogfood sandwiches? Cause i just love those.” he said “Honey, you know that I don’t give you dogfood sandwiches.” and I said, “Oh yes, Daddy, all the time.” There were two old ladies there at the checkout and they were JUST SCANDALIZED. My father couldnt persuade them that no, he never fed me dogfood…I have a feeling that I am going to have to pay for that comment eventually; I have three small kids.
July 16th, 2006 at 1:02 pmChris,
I laughed out loud when I read this, but you really haven’t lived until your grown husband teaches your sons to say things like “Hey Kath, why don’t you buy some of this stuff (holding up a bottle of toilet cleaner), it says on the container it cleans the toilet and gets rid of all the STAINS on it from NEVER cleaning it”. What a great idea! Of course every woman in the same isle with us will look at ME with such disgust that you can almost hear their nasty comments under their breath. The man needs help.
Kathleen
July 17th, 2006 at 9:31 am