The hang on tight

Saturday started off like any other day. I woke up at 6am and through bleary eyes gave myself a pep talk about how every aspect of my life was my choice as I changed two diapers containing enormous steaming dumps.

We were having some friends over for dinner that night, so I had to go to Wal-Mart to pick up a few items. I saw they had a 5lb. beef log on sale which obviously I needed.

Lila is now big enough to sit in the front of the cart and rather than sitting in the back under a blanket of frozen goods Ellie prefers to do what she has termed the "hang on tight." Misleading in its nomenclature, the "hang on tight" actually means "run around the store and pull shit off the shelves while people chase me and judge my Mom."

I usually give her two chances and then it's back into the cart we go. Saturday was no exception, after pulling out both the bottom head of lettuce and the bottom lime causing an avalanche of produce, I had enough.

This is where things got a little sketchy.

Upon placing her into the back of the cart she immediately began gyrating like she was being electrocuted and screaming at the top of her lungs. It wasn't a normal scream... more like a panicked and dying wildebeest that had been possessed by a tornado siren with snot and spit flying everywhere out of its face.

She had thrown tantrums before but never like this. Chicken, 5lb. beef log, lettuce... everything went flying around the cart.

I was at a total loss for what to do. I tried talking to her but her eyes were crazy and I was scared for my safety. I knew the best thing to do was to probably abandon the cart of groceries in the store, along with her in it, but I couldn't leave. This was my only window of errand availability before the daily tag team of naps began. I knew my only option was to go like the wind.

Of course when you're trying to go like the wind in a grocery store you can't find a god damned thing. Taco seasoning, black beans, mushrooms, margarita salt... all disappear into the grocery pit of despair.

I knew this moment eventually would come; I've seen it a million times in the grocery store with other poor bastards. And I thought that when it was my turn I would be met with sympathetic gazes and at least a couple laughs with an "oh mine did the same thing" reassuring pat.

Hell no. People were coming to the end of their aisles, wide eyed, boxes still in hand, and peeking around to see what the hell I was doing to this child to make her scream so loud. Then they were giving me the most awful, judgemental looks as if this is all somehow related to the fact that I had a glass of wine or fifty when I was pregnant.

"WHERE! THE! HELL! IS! THE! MOTHERFUCKING!!!!! TACO SEASONING!!!!! AAAAAAHHHHH!!" I flew through the aisles like a mad woman while Beelzebub threw her screaming self around the back of the cart. I actually think I blacked out for part of the trip in some sort of self preservation mental defense strategy.

The next thing I knew I was back at home with nothing but a Wal-Mart bag full of lettuce, beef logs, tequila, Dum Dums and a Transformer pinata.

It was an awesome dinner.