Saturday, October 20, 2012

I bleep you not!

OK, I am sure you are all sick of my Market Basket posts but I sh*t you not the story you are about to read is real.  Every week I have some MB issue but like a moth to a flame I am drawn back week after week.  I think it is much like a car wreck.  You know it is going to be bad but you look anyway.  I know deep down that Market Basket is going to be bad but I go anyway...

This week the shopping trip itself was fine.  No bumps in the road there.  It was the check out process that was sheer disaster.  One of the things I really like about The Basket is that they hire people with special needs.  That is important to me and I want to support them for that...it is a big part of the reason I make the long drive every Thursday.  I usually have the patience of a saint when they are bagging my groceries...I build in an extra few minutes to my budgeted grocery shopping time to accommodate this.  However I was not prepared for what happened this past Thursday...

I specifically go on Thursday mornings because I have a window of opportunity to go with just 1 child at a time when the store is not super busy and when I never have to wait in a check out line.  Typically at that time of day they are waiting around for someone to come into their lane.  It is common for the bagger to stand at the top of the line, lure you in and start helping unload your groceries onto the conveyor belt.  It gives you a jump start on processing your order and I am sure it mixes things up for them a bit, combating the boredom they must encounter at the slower times of the day.

So one of the baggers, who in my head I refer to as Chatty Cathy because she never stops talking to me, the cashier or even herself when no one else is listening, flags me down.  I think she is there to help me unload my cart, oh no my friends, she has bigger plans for me.  She tells me that she is a cashier now and that today was her first day in this new role.  SH*T!!!  I only have an extra 5 minutes budgeted to get my order processed, have Anna take a ride on Old Yeller (the mechanical ride she earns for behaving...that only works 50% of the time), the 20 minute ride home, unpacking the fridge and freezer items before heading to pick Sara up from school.  I am doomed.  I can feel it...

So she does a pretty decent job of getting my order through in a respectable time frame.  I then bring out my coupons...I am back in my coupon faze, I have bright red hair to prove it!!  L'Oreal was on sale AND I had a $2 off manufacturer's coupon.  Can't beat that no matter the color!  I saved $6.50 this week, it was supposed to be $6.90 but that part of the story is coming a bit later.  So she takes my 7 coupons and looks them all over, intently studying them if you will, much like the passport control people at JFK post 9/11.  She pulls one out of the group and in a kind of stern voice tells me that "this one expires tomorrow".  "Mmm-huh" I say, "that is why I am using it today"...she goes on to tell me that she likes to make sure that they are not expired.  I wanted to tell her that if she tried to swipe them through and they were expired they would be rejected, but I thought better of it and bit my tongue.  She then goes on to ask her bagger to look for each individual item I had a coupon for.  Keep in mind that half of my groceries were already bagged!!  She didn't care.  She wanted to do her due diligence and see each item in the flesh.  This time I did tell her that if the item was not already purchased and she scanned a coupon it would not be accepted.  She said, yes, she knew that but she just likes to double check for herself.  I just dejectedly put my head down and waited for her to visually confirm the previously bagged items.  Lest, I try to pull the wool over her eyes and get thirty five cents off of bread I didn't really buy.

She is done.  I pay and turn to push my groceries out of the store.  Not as easy as you would think because somewhere along the line the bagger disappeared.  While I was proving to the cashier I was not misusing my coupon privilege the bagger went MIA.  So now I had to finish bagging the stuff myself, which in the long run is probably to my benefit...I made sure to evenly distribute the glass jars and not load 9 of them in the same bag while giving syrup its own bag.

I was walking away when I was summoned back to checkout lane 5.  Apparently she missed a coupon.  She was apologizing profusely and told me to take it to the courtesy booth where they would redeem it for me.  I told her no worries.  I would just use it another time.  She begged me, even used "please, please go and turn it in".  I told her not to worry, I wouldn't tell anyone that she missed it (except all the blog readers) and that I would not complain and I promised to use it next week.  She was devastated.  I finally lied and told her I was going right over and turn it in.  I wanted to make sure she was able to sleep that night and not fret over the 40 cents I overpaid for my Land O Lakes margarine...

Can't wait to see what next Thursday brings.


Oh, here is a link to the People of Market Basket website.  For those of you not in the MB catchment area you can log on and get a glimpse into the wonderfulness that is "The Basket"....

http://www.peopleofmb.com/

Monday, October 15, 2012

Speechless

So Sara has learned how to "sew".  She can sew a somewhat straight line and has turned a bunch of old T-shirts into Barbie sleeping bags.  She has also fixed Chuck's socks that had holes.  Well about an hour ago Sara told me there was a little hole in the table cloth  she wanted to sew.  This was news to me but I told her she could do it after lunch.  I just walked into the kitchen and noticed that the tablecloth was shredded.  No little hole!!  I also noticed a pair of purple kids scissors on the table.  Apparently Edward Scissorhands was a little too eager to sew.  Of course the one time I need to come across stern I get a case of the giggles.  I ask what happened and I said I really wanted the truth.  She goes on about Anna needing paper...never mentioning what happened to the table cloth.  I ask her if she cut it with the scissors and again, I wanted the truth.  Totally straight faced she says, "I told you I wanted to do a sewing project so I cut it and now I can sew it up again"...

I have nothing else to say.  I am speechless.

Thursday, October 11, 2012

A tisket, a tasket...I went shopping at the Basket

Trust me, the trip did not disappoint!  If you have been following my blog you know  I have a love/hate relationship with Market Basket.  I love it because of the low prices, great produce and decent vegetarian selection.  I hate it because, well, it is Market Basket.  They leave pallets in the middle of the aisles, the baggers have an odd sense of what products should be matched up in the bags and the clientele is in a word; interesting.  If you are not from this area you may not understand the intricacies of the Basket.  For a better understanding check out "The People of Market Basket" facebook page.  It will help get you in the mindset I need to channel every Thursday morning.  

In addition to my weekly trip into the abyss it was an all around craptastic day.  I woke up late, sweating my a$$ off.  I look to my left and there is Anna sound asleep.  I look to my right and there is Sara.  I have two built in human furnaces...no wonder my body temp is raised 10 degrees.  We get ready and head out to drop Sara off at preschool.  We make it before the doors open...with time to spare if you can imagine that!  It is a chilly morning so Anna and I make a mad dash for the minivan.  I get her all buckled up, pull out of the parking lot and reach for my nice, warm pumpkin coffee.  I didn't find it.  To my horror it had tipped over and spilled out all over the minivan's rug!  So no coffee and now my van smells like sour pumpkin.  YUM!!  I move on and decide to not let that ruin my day.  Little did I know there would be plenty of other things to come that would trump the great coffee debacle...

We go shopping, speed through so we would have time to get the shopping done, get home, unpack it all and pick Sara up on time.  MB is about 12 miles away.  Not too far, but you have to time it out like a Team Seal 6 operation.  If I were EVER 10 seconds late picking Sara up she would NEVER let me forget it.

We are in the produce section and Anna notices a small hole in my jeans...right next to my back pocket.  She puts her finger in it announcing loudly that I have a hole in my pants and yanks on it turning the tiny hole into a 3 inch rip on my ass.  Thanks Anna!  I can always count on her to embarrass me one way or another while at the Basket.

So, like I said, we got the shopping done in record time, and it was a LONG list this week.  I find an empty check-out line.  Score!  I load up the belt, the lady scanning is pretty quick.  Great!  We will be out of here in no time.   But wait, the groceries are backing up.  What the heck is happening?  Turns out the bagger may or may not have been under the influence of an illicit substance.  He would take every flippin item hold it up, turn it around checking it out from every possible angle before putting it in the bag.  It was as if he were on drugs and the shiny labels were distracting.  If you are a MB shopper what is up with their bagging techniques?  They pile 10 glass jars in one bag, 4 small cat food cans in another, 3 half gallons of milk with dryer sheets in a 3rd and the tiny, sacred, plastic spray bottle of butter gets a bag all to itself.  I have never been a grocery bagger so there must be some science to it, but I do not understand their logic at all.  But I digress...

So Anna and I head out and just as we cross the threshold of the automatic exit door my precariously piled pyramid of bags comes crashing down.  So there I am holding up the exit door chasing after the cat food cans, trying to keep Anna from wandering away all the while trying to keep some shred of dignity as people are complaining about the hold up.

After getting our sh*t together we head over to the Merry Go Round (Anna's reward for good behavior) she is thrilled there is not an "Out of Order" sign on it.  Typically there is.  She gets on the green horse and gears up.  I put the quarters in and you guessed it...NOTHING!!!  Once again it is broken.  Poor bugger is broken hearted.  She sadly rides the single horse...

On the way home we are stuck behind someone going 20 miles an hour for 11 miles!!!  It is a long 11 miles on the back country road...Thanks to the tripping bagger and the blue haired couple out leaf peeping I am now 20 minutes behind schedule.

I get home and load both arms up with the bags and climb the million stairs up to the front door.  We have a screen door that opens into our screened porch before we get to the actual front door.  It sticks sometimes so I bang it open with my knee.  I fall face forward on top of all the bags.  Anna grumbles..."what is taking you so long" as she steps over me and the groceries.  So compassionate.

I drop those off and head down for the rest of the bags.  I load both arms up again.  I refuse to make more than 2 trips.  I start the long trek up the stairs.  My foot gets caught and I fall face forward again!!  I sh*t you not.  I am laying flat out on the stairs with yogurts rolling by my face.  I jump up as fast as I can because my face is very close to where I have seen a snake in the past.  That would be the icing on the cake.  A snake slithering over my head...

I have just enough time to put the fridge and freezer items away before preschool gets out.  The girls and I then went to a playdate.  Which was the highlight of my day...thanks Danielle and Dawn!!  I finally got the last of the groceries put away at 3:30 this afternoon.


Oh, here is a joke my sweet little 2 year old told me today...

Anna: "knock, knock"

Me:  "who's there?"

Anna:  "how did the mommy poop on the baby?"

Me:  "I don't know.  How did the mommy poop on the baby?"

Anna:  "From her butt hole"

And how was your day?

Saturday, October 6, 2012

10,000 strong and growing

I know the old Flintstones ad was 10 million strong and growing but I am just so excited it might as well be 10 million!!!  I hit 10,000 page views today!!!!!  Thank you!!!  Thank you!!!  Thank you!!!  What started as a way to condense my Facebook posts has turned into a little hobby for me.  I have fun with the blog and I love looking to see where people have logged in from.  In 7 months I have not only hit 10,000 views but the blog has been viewed in 6 of the 7 continents...North America, South America, Africa, Asia, Europe and Australia...Antarctica I'm coming for you!!

Besides the US, Japan and Spain have the most views....Thank you Miho, Joaquin and Caty!!!  Those are the obvious ones.  There is one that I am really curious about.  I have had 131 views from Russia. In my mind I have 2 scenarios...it is an Ex-Patriot living in a suburb of Moscow that logs on over her morning coffee.  She too is a mostly stay at home suburban mom, like me, and she is a bit "culturally" homesick and finds comfort in the misadventures of my family.  The second scenario is that it is an old Russian women who reads with disgust over the "problems" that I have with my kids.  Either way I feel connected to my Russian reader and I worry about him/her when I see that they haven't viewed in a while.  If you are reading this from Russia send me an email and say hi!  I am so curious to see if the humor/experiences translate into other cultures.  I kind of think they might.  Latvia and Lithuania are coming on strong with a recent surge in page views.  I will compile a list of countries where it has been viewed.  It is cool to see that people from all over the world are reading my words!!!  If I ever win the lottery I am going to take a Tales of a Mini Van Mom world tour!!

Chuck was the one who told me this morning that I hit the 10,000 views milestone.  Over my coffee this morning I was explaining that I think it is because I am "every mom"...kind of like Whitney Houston singing she is every woman.  All moms face the same issues, struggles and joys with their kids.  I just dare to actually put it out there for all to see...the good, the bad and the ugly.  I think moms can relate to my posts.  As I was explaining my theory Chuck interupts me and says, "hey 'every mom' you have some glitter on your eye"...yup...I am every mom...even in my little personal victories I am just a mom, craft glitter and all!!!

Friday, October 5, 2012

My days are numbered

I have a stalker that is out to kill me.  Literally.  This being truly wants me dead and will stop at nothing until their goal is achieved.  As far as I can tell she has 4 major plots to take me out; heart attack, poisoning, staged "accident" and a flat out wild animal attack.  My nemesis, or my Newman, is Lucy our cat.  We adopted her 9 months ago when she was 4 1/2 years old.  I would have returned her to the shelter about 8 1/2 months ago if not for the fact she makes an awesome pet for the girls.  She snuggles with them, lets them dress her up, pull her around in the wagon and even sleeps in her cat bed which is now located in the top bunk with Sara.  They love her and she loves them.  So she is a keeper.  However, Lucy and I have a mutual disdain for each other.  If you know me you may find that hard to believe.  I usually LOVE my pets.  My friend Shannon once said that if she were to be reincarnated she wanted to come back as one of my pets.  I am an awesome pet owner.  I know I can't put that on my resume and it won't get me anywhere but it is true.  For whatever reason Lucy has hated me from the start.  I have tried to get into her good graces but nothing has worked so I have decided to cut my loses and just coexist with her.  Nothing more, nothing less.

Like I said, we adopted her from a shelter.  Supposedly she was given away because her owner suddenly developed allergies.  I am calling radishes on that one...that is TMZ speak for bullsh*t.  I think they decided this cat was too creepy and weird and they decided to cut their loses.  Lucky me...

Let me introduce you to the murder plots I have uncovered so far...

#1.  A heart attack-  There have been several occasions where Lucy has scared the bejesus  out of me.  I have cardiac issues...one of these days she may just induce the "big one".  She is an all black cat except for a tiny spot of white under her neck.  She is stealth.  Lucy also is pretty industrious.  She can open cabinet doors.  There have been a few times after everyone goes to bed the house is silent and dark I head into the kitchen for a snack.  I open the cabinet and get the shock of my life when all of the sudden there are 2 green eyes staring at me.  Or I will turn around and come face to face with her on the kitchen island.  The kicker is she has a cold stare that just goes right through me.  No one else sees this side of her, she saves it all for me.  Yay me!  A few nights ago I fell asleep on the couch while watching TV.  I woke up to the sensation that someone was really close to my face.  I am thinking it is Chuck (wink, wink)...I open my eyes seductively only to see those creepy green eyes about an inch away from mine and her licking her lips like the is getting ready to go in for the kill...I will have to start sleeping with one eye open from now on.

#2.  Poisoning.  Lucy is gross.  She has a weird obsession with plastic.  She is constantly licking any plastic she can get her cat paws on.  Plastic bags are her preference but she will lick anything plastic.  The sound alone of her sand paper tongue scraping along the plastic is enough to make your skin crawl, let alone all the germs she is infecting them with.  She is an indoor cat so fortunately there are no dead rodent germs but lets be honest here, cats lick themselves...paws, ears and oh yes my friends, their asses.  Lucy is no exception.  She goes to town on her white balloon knot.  Then she hunts down any plastic she can find...onions are now immediately taken out of their red plastic netting.  She loved that.  Same with potatoes, they come right out of their bag.  Our counters are near spotless because she can not be trusted.     The other day I was happily drinking with a straw only to walk into the kitchen and she her on the counter getting frisky with the straws that we keep in a cup on the counter...she is going to get me one way or another.

#3.  Staged "accident".  Lucy is silent and soon to be deadly.  Again, she is a black cat that loves to sneak up on me.  I have tried collars with jingle bells but she gets out of them.  I will be walking through the house at night and suddenly trip over my own feet.  Or so I think...I will then see her out of the corner of my eye, she weaves in and out of my legs when I am walking.  What the hell is with that?  It is like she is doing some type of kitty field sobriety test.  She loves sleeping with Sara.  So much so that Sara moved Lucy's cat bed up into the top bunk with her.  Lucy loves sleeping up there.  I still tuck Sara in even though she is on the top of the bunk bed.  Well Lucy has her own bedtime ritual too and it includes annoying the sh*t out of me.  Before she settles into her cat bed in the far corner of the bunk she sprawls out right in front of the ladder.  She plants herself and digs in like dead weight.  I try moving her which is near impossible so I end up doing a mini Cirque Du Soliel act to maneuver over her.  What I really want to do is forcefully throw her off the top bunk and go about my business but, I can't because Sara is watching and  seeing her mom abuse her cat may cause some psychological damage down the road.  Last night at about 2 a.m. Sara had a nightmare.  I ran in to check on her.  The screaming made Lucy bolt so I had a clear path up to Sara.  I settle her in and I head back down the ladder.  At that exact moment Lucy stealthy decides it is time to climb back up the ladder.   I of course lose my footing and slip down the ladder whacking my shin bone on every flippin rung.  I can't scream out and proclaim the agony I was in because I would then wake up Sara AND Anna...so once again I hold it in.  I hate that friggin cat!!

#4.  Wild animal attack.  We have had Lucy for 9 months.  In that time we have been able to clip ONE of her nails. Not one paw.  ONE NAIL!!  We have tried.  Trust me, we have tried.  She is my 4th cat.  I know how to clip their nails.  I have been doing it for 12 years.  When we try with Lucy she channels her inner panther.  She gets an even more wild, crazed look in her eyes and she tries to bite, scratch and screeches like a girl (that is how Sara describes it).  Chuck wraps her in a blanket and tries his best to hold her down...the strength of 10 men could not hold her down.  She is terrifying when she gets like that.  Even Chuck is afraid of her.  Gracie, my shy, timid cat who stays far away from Lucy even come out and tries to protect me when she is in attack mode.  We gave up.  I called the vet and scheduled an appointment.   I told them they would need at least 3 people and the hawk gloves and that she may need to be sedated.  I get her in the crate and she screeches the whole way there.  They take her in the back and the girls and i brace ourselves for the screeches that are sure to ensue.  Nothing...it is silent.  About 3 minutes later the vet tech emerges and says she is done.  What?  Oh yeah, Lucy cooperated.  The tech did it by HERSELF!!! and Lucy just silently sat there and let her do it.  WTF!!!!

 The girls said they couldn't believe she was a faker.   So it made me realize that it is all an act. She is just out to get me.  I give up.  You win Lucy.  I will just have to bide my time.  How long do indoor cats usually live anyway?