Grocery Shopping. Why do we do it to ourselves?

It's Sunday and we've picked this morning from our busy weekend to make our weekly trip to the grocery store. This is something that is normally considered a luxury for me because I get to go alone while all the kids stay home with Dan. Yay for me!

However, today we decided to take the boys and go together on the way home from running other errands. This would be a time saver right? Never mind that Daniel Jr. was really overdue for his nap and Nicholas has turned into the million question a day maniac! Are we going to the grocery store? How do we get there? Which grocery store? Do they have the blue race car cart? Do they have a bathroom? Do they have food there? Where is the grocery store? Are we going to the grocery store now? OMFG! I almost threw myself out of the truck on the freeway into oncoming traffic for goodness sake! It would have been less painful than enduring Nicholas' rant.

Once in the grocery store I have a list, I search the coupons because I work my ass off to save our money to the last penny. This drives Dan Sr. nuts since it takes me about five minutes or so to scan both ads and tear out needed coupons. The list, none-the-less saves time because I break it up by area of the store (i.e. produce, dairy, meat, frozen, etc). Did I mention my mild case of OCD?

So, off we go...running from this to that to get each item on the list to support my menu of family friendly, holy shit are we eating this again, meals. We then encounter the cereal/fruit snack aisle. This is where shit goes seriously down hill. First, they have a mountain of Spaghettios at the end of this isle, one type has a picture of Dora the Explorer on the front and Nick sees it. OMG, you would have thought it was the only food he would get to eat all week the way he clung to that can (at least when grabbing it he didn't knock the entire mountain to the floor). He whined and begged and we gave in. Why not let the kid eat some fake, crappy, canned concoction of who knows what preservatives and other shit at least once in a blue moon? So he carried his can of Dora spaghettios proudly down the aisle until he got sight of the endless shelves of fruit snacks. Now, here is where the "why do we do it to ourselves?" part comes in.

Nick proceeded to grab a box of fruit snacks at his level, off the shelf, knocking about four other boxes to the floor. By the time this scene occurred Dan and I were already heading out of the aisle to proceed to the next area of our list. Nick decided to scream for us to stop and wait while whining and fake crying. I do the normal thing I do when our kids aren't paying attention to our requests to follow along and walk with us...I told him "bye Nick" and started to walk away prompting Dan to do the same.  Nick had already picked the boxes up and was just staring at the shelves longingly.

This my friends is when the couple in their 40s, possibly 50s was walking by near Nick giving Dan and I the looks of "aren't you just a horrible couple of fucking parents to treat your child that way". I ignored them as I do most people who don't have any idea or have simply forgotten how difficult it is to bring your pre-school aged children to the grocery store UNTIL...wait for it...UNTIL...they bent down to console our screaming, tantrum throwing, whiny son and helped him pick up the two new boxes he had thrown off the shelf onto the floor.

I started back down the aisle, glaring at the couple and asked politely that Nick say "thank you" for their "help".  They looked at me as though I was the spawn of Satan himself and told me "he was trying so hard to pick them up and he just couldn't when you were walking away". OMFG?! What did you just say? Have you never seen a child throw a tantrum? Have you never experienced this snafu in the grocery store before? Every mother/father in that store with a child was gritting his/her teeth threatening their children under their breath this morning (as only another parent can hear and appreciate). Am I the only one who gets these morons that give me a guilt trip because I have some how screwed up my child's future completely by walking away from him while he was having a tantrum in a public place? Did they think I was actually going to leave him by himself in the middle of the grocery store while I went about my merry way? What in the heck do these people honestly have going through their head? Holy moly rocky did they piss me off!

Nick proceeded to whine his way through the grocery store, opening and slamming freezer case doors, grabbing and throwing products this way and that...he is the child my mother hoped for me to have. The one that would help me understand all she went through with me. God help us!

I am going to the grocery store alone from now on!