I just need wipes and toilet paper
I just need wipes and toilet paper
I repeated these words over and over to myself as I pulled into the parking earlier this afternoon.
Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely adore The Tar-jay, but only when I’m by myself, with no time limit, on payday, with a giant latte in my hand. Alas, I had to stop in today even though I needed to get home for work, and I had both kids with me. Everybody knows you don’t go to Target with kids. Did I mention that said children still hadn’t eaten lunch yet, and one was way overdue for a nap?
Once I managed to wrangle both kids into the cart, I saw that they had animal costume sets in the dollar spot and my son needs one for his Noah’s Ark Parade next week- score! He insisted on being a tiger, but I couldn’t find the tiger gloves anywhere. I suggested we just use the monkey gloves because let’s be honest, nobody is going to notice or give AF, but he proceeded to have a complete meltdown because he HAD to have the tiger ones. I started to dig through every freaking bin in the dollar spot for who knows how long when suddenly, he decided that he wanted to be a lion instead. I smiled at him through gritted teeth as I reached for the lion set (which had matching gloves thank JESUS), and tried to grasp on to any shred of patience I had left.
I tried to mentally run through the list of things I needed again and cursed myself for not writing them down. I rushed through the aisles grabbing things as I passed them and realized we were out of this, or we would need that for a recipe this week, or the kids would want to snack on these. Target has this way of completely stripping away any budgeting skills you’ve acquired through the years and replacing them with the overwhelming urge to buy things you don’t need. It must be something they release through the air vents.
I was about to make my way towards the front of the store when my son dramatically reminded me that we didn’t walk past the Halloween section to see the blow ups (his words). At this same moment, I looked down and realized my daughter was missing a shoe. So, off we went, backtracking our path to find the shoe while heading back towards the Halloween section.
After successfully locating the shoe, we arrived at self-checkout because I’d rather die than make small talk with a cashier. When I saw the total, I immediately started figuring out how I was going to explain to my husband that I blew the budget we agreed upon. What the hell did I even buy? How does this happen every time?
Finally, bags in hand, we headed to the car.
On our way out, it finally hit my daughter that she was beyond tired and over it, and she proceeded to unleash the mother of all tantrums. I choked down the anxiety creeping its way up my chest and focused on getting home as fast as humanly possible. While I was trying to buckle her flailing arms into her car seat, a Jeep pulled up right next to me even though there were ten other empty spots around us. An older man got out as I was putting the last bag in the trunk, daughter still wailing, and had the balls to ask me if I was going to put my cart in the cart receptacle or if I was just going to leave it there.
If it weren’t for the fact that I had appointments with students, had to feed my kids, and get my daughter down for a nap, I would have unleashed the mom-demon that I keep buried deep inside, because I’m a non-confrontational person, and let him have it. I calmly finished strapping in kids, left my damn cart right where it was, and drove home.
Once we got to the house, my garage door wouldn’t open so I had to get the kids out, go in through the front door, open the garage and go back out to the car for the groceries. The moment I popped open the hatch, a bag fell out and my brand new, ten-dollar micellar makeup remover busted open and sprayed everywhere. All over the bottle of coffee creamer, bag of grapes, and all over me.
Despite this long dramatic story, we made it home, groceries were put away, kids were fed, naps were had, and I was able to sit down and get some work done.
But guys.
It wasn’t until my son went to use the bathroom and came walking out naked with poop smeared all over his underpants, because he didn’t have anything else to use, that I realized with a heavy sigh…
I forgot to get wipes and toilet paper.
