Glutton for punishment

Today was super deep psycho cleaning day at the ranch today. In my explanation to the kids, I told them it would be better to do it now than when they were off for Thanksgiving Break and fun people were coming to play. This persuasvie reasoning was very effective for all of about 15 minutes before the fighting started. Sorting and scrubbing and cleaning and grubbing for an hour and a half. I pitched and tossed crap all morning. Then I made the dumbest decision that I have made in quite a while...and that's saying something for me. I decided that it was the best idea and right time, at 1:30 pm on a Saturday afternoon before Thanksgiving, to go to the grocery store and take three children shopping for turkey day supplies. Wow. Best. Decision. Ever. One child had a spontaeously sore foot that hurt at the most opportune times for her. One child felt the need to whip out coupons for everything in the weirdest places. As I looked for Ritz crackers, I hear, "I have a great coupon for corn pads. Do you need any corn pads?". "No, honey. We don't need any of those." "Well, it doesn't expire until March, so you're good if you need it." "Okay. I just need Ritz crackers for the broccoli casserole right now." Then the last child discovred the wealth of recoverable coupons right underneath the shelves. Apparently people don't want to bend over and look under there to find their dropped coupon. So he basically scooted along the shelf line, reaching under the shelves, finding coupons and yelling, "Hey, Sissy? Is this a good one?". "Yes, bubby. That's a great one. Keep digging!". "Uh, no son. The floor is dirty...please get up." "Here's another one. And what's this, mom?". I look up from my list to see both of his hands up: one with a coupon for Triscuits or something and the other hand with two, yes two, RAZOR BLADES. I calmly took them from him, decided to retire him from the coupon scrounging/floor mopping with his pants business and proceeded to look for the store manager. He was very conerned about the boy's discovery and thanked me for letting him know. We continued shopping, one limping, one rattling off "I have a coupon for that" and one saying, "Razor blades...ra--zor---blaaaades" over and over in some sort of Spanish/Snidely Whiplash kind of accent. If I could have burrowed deep back into a pocket of the paper towels, I would have. Instead I lost my gimpy child and her little cart somewhere in the cleaning supplies, had to double to find that she had gotten trapped between two rather buxom grandmotherly women deep in converstaion about the merits of Dawn vs Palmolive. The poor kid looked a little stressed, so I safely extracted her nd we sought asylum in the frozen vegetables. By the time we left the store, over two hours had gone by...and it felt every bit of 7. The cashier was so very kind to us all, I know we must have looked rough.

We got home. Gimpy put her feet up. Coupon kid studied the receipt with great fervor. The boy kept saying, "Ra--zor---blaaaades. Razor blades." All I know is this: the dressing and other stuff I am making better be good after all that.


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