Thing 4, bless her heart, spilled her milk the other night. When I looked over and realized she had just scooted over so as to not be sitting it in, I asked her why she didn’t tell us that she spilled it.
She just looked at me with those big eyes but said nothing.
As I grabbed some paper towels and headed over to absorb the puddle I said, “Thing 4, accidents happen. You spilled your milk. It’s okay. You just have to tell us so that we can help clean it up.”
Again, she said nothing, but watched as I moved from the spill on the table, to the chair and to the floor.
As I was mopping up the remains on the floor, I hear Thing 3 yell “Clean up on aisle 6!” I chuckled.
Thing 1 asked why I was laughing and I told him that it jarred a memory of the ONE “clean up in aisle 6″ stories that I had. Only in my story, it was aisle 10. “In fact,” I said to him, “I think I blogged about it and put it in the ‘Insanity At It’s Best Book.’”
I headed to the living room and retrevied the book from the book shelf and found the story. I read it aloud to both the boy and Thing 1 and then again to Thing 2 since she arrived late and it was killing her that she didn’t know what we were laughing at.
“I think I’ll repost this,” I told them. “It was a good one.”
So here it is…
Originally posted April something-or-other, 2008.
Clean Up In Aisle 10
In my 11+ years of mothering my children I have made many grocery store trips. I have had my ankles run over by my children who wish to push the cart and SWEAR they won’t hit anything with it.
I’ve shushed them way too many times because they were being too loud in the store or were arguing.
I’ve calmed crying babies.
I’ve said no to all the sugary cereals (ok, well not ALL of them.)
I’ve allowed them to help pick out fruit and showed them where to find the “clearance” foods.
I’ve pretty much done it all…
except…
…causing a store employee to pipe over the loud speaker that some goon spilled something all over the place.
that is, until Friday night.
And the worst part about it?
I was that goon who caused the spill that required a clean up.
Not my children who were fighting over which $2 12-pack of soda to purchase for the week. Not my children who were not happy to even be at the grocery store. Not my children who argued and pushed one another from the time that we set foot through the electric, motion sensored doors…
No. Not them….
Me.
And it was so careless that I’m embarrassed.
Well, not as embarrassed as I would be if someone actually saw me, but still.
When we still, after 5 minutes, had not come to a conclusion on the carbonated beverage of choice, I grabbed a box of Diet Dr. K. After all, if they couldn’t chose, I would chose for them.
But when I did, I knocked over the Big K that was sitting right next to it.
And when it hit the floor?
Spew. Fizz.
I thought about just walking away. It was such a little leak that surely the next person would report it. I mean, no one was there to see that I had caused the spill.
And really? That box looked like it had been through the mill and had been on the shelf for a gazillion years, so no one was going to buy it anyway.
But, the kids were there. And if I EVER found out that they broke something and didn’t report it, I would skin their hides. So I felt it was best to find a store employee and let them know what I had done.
Except I didn’t have to. Samara darted off before I could process the direction in which I wanted to move.
I waited to hear those dreadful words on the loud speaker, but when Samara returned, they still hadn’t proclaimed that some doofus knocked a box of soda over in aisle 10.
Thinking that she got lost and never actually told someone, I asked her, “Did you tell some one?”
“Yes.” She replied.
Still no word from the overhead voices.
“Well, what did you tell them?” Knowing her, she probably just darted up and said there’s a spill and darted off.
Very loudly, with new inhabitants of aisle 10 within earshot she said, “I told them that my mom had a meltdown in aisle 10 and now there’s a huge puddle of the cheap soda all over the floor.”
And at that moment, I heard it.
“Clean up in aisle 10″
Until next time…
{ 1 comment }
That is hysterical.
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