Mystery Post Monday-Decisions

My sister recently started a weekly post she is calling Mystery Post Mondays, and I'm going to jump on board whenever I can and participate! The topic randomly selected this morning pertains to decisions, and more specifically, the best decision that I have made this month.

I can tell you quite confidently that not only one, but three decisions I made after this morning's trip to Target, will no doubt prove to be the best of the month. Let me detail the perfect storm of unfortunate factors that left me feeling the need to apologize to any of you who have may have seen me and my children from 11:00-12:00, and which also consequently led to the making of the three fabulous decisions that will hopefully serve as protection for future outings.

Everything was starting off A-okay. Since it was right before lunch, I decided to let the girls have some popcorn while we strolled, in hopes of staving off the inevitable, "I'm hungry. I'm really, really hungry," remarks that begin pouring out as we go down the food aisles near noon. So I got the popcorn, and just because I really wanted it to be a fun trip I got the blue Icee too. I didn't stop there. I also allowed the girls to ride in that horrific contraption posing as a convenient way to push two young children through the store: the two-seater cart. The girls were ready for some serious fun.

My first clue that trouble was lurking came the moment I stuck the straw into the Icee. Up to this point, Adrienne has had no desire for anything but milk or water, but let me tell you, all of that has changed. As soon as she saw the icy blueness, she went crazy. She wanted it. All of it.

If you've ever been in similar circumstance, you can pretty much guess the rest. There is nothing fun about refereeing one small Icee between two thirsty girls, while manipulating that beast of a cart, and (yes, I really had dreamed to the moon and back) carrying my Starbucks. But that was just the beginning. The fun didn't really start until the popcorn, which had been placed in a nook at the feet of the girls, got kicked over in one of the Icee confrontations. Like a covering of snow, the popcorn blanketed the bottom of the cart where the girls feet went. This problem was magnified by the fact that the bottom of the cart actually had small slats instead of solid plastic, which allowed all of that popcorn to drop out, piece by piece, throughout the store. I spent the rest of the trip picking up popcorn as it dropped, every few feet or so, and sometimes, actually getting down on all fours to sweep it into piles with my hands. It was ugly, I'm not going to lie to you. And the worst part was knowing it was a mess of my own making. The girls would have been just find sans the food, drink, and fancy cart. Sure, Marianna might have said she was hungry and Adrienne might have reached her hand out to a box of crackers, but since when did that hurt anybody?

The self-induced torture was completed while we were checking out. The buckle on that dad gum seat couldn't keep Adrienne contained, and while she was taking advantage of the still cart to scramble out, the Icee was knocked out, right in front of a perfectly put together mother of two, whose knees weren't blackened from frequent encounters with the Target floor, and whose children were sitting, quiet and content in a normal cart. I scrambled to pick it up, and found that a small puddle of blue had leaked out. I looked around for anything I could grab to clean it, and of course, came up with nothing. In desperation, I grabbed the paper that I had written my Target list on, and got down on my hands and knees, again, to clean it up. We all know paper isn't absorbent, and unfortunately my embarrassing circumstances didn't change that fact. I was sincerely hoping that, just this time, the paper would do the trick. Sadly, it didn't.

Finally I escaped (but only after my cart gave me one parting stab by getting stuck against the register station) and by the time my feet touched the parking lot pavement, my three decisions were made.

1. I will never push that dreadful two-seater cart ever again.

2. Popcorn anywhere besides a movie-theatre is a menace. Stick to a sucker.

3. Icees will come in twos or not at all.

Those are the guidelines I will be living by for all future Target trips from now until forever. And even if they are not the best decisions for the month, they certainly come with the best story.