Shop 'til You Drop

It’s not often I get to hit the shops without an entourage.

Oh my Beloved avoids the shopping centres like the dog avoids a bath- so it’s a rare event to have him along on the excursion- it’s usually just me and the kids.

So when I do get to escape, even for a quick trip to the supermarket for some essentials, it’s a blessing. And usually quite enlightening.

I’m an observer of people, you see, and there is plenty of fodder at the food stores!

Take the other day, for example.

I was standing in line at the checkout with my ‘handful of groceries’ (an old joke of my mother’s, because in fact anything more than one item is actually over the aforementioned handful) when I can’t help but overhear what’s happening with the people in front of me. So did the rest of the queue. Sadly for us, we couldn’t quite see what was going on, but anyone with a long-haired child could guess...

It’s obviously a mother and daughter tag team, and it’s also obvious that the mother has just about had enough ‘quality time’ with the daughter for one outing.

The one-sided conversation goes something like this, the following all coming from the mum (and I bet you’ve experienced a similar scenario). I have to say, the mother in question did a stand-up job of positive parenting- up to a point:

“Oh Darling, don’t do that with your hair, please.”

“No, please Darling, don’t do that with your hair.”

“Honey, I said don’t do that.”

“I mean it, please don’t do that, it’s annoying.”

“Leave your hair alone Darling.”

“I said, leave your hair alone!”

“Leave it alone now or I’m going to get cranky.”

“Alright, I’m really getting cranky now- stop doing that to your hair!’

“I mean it, don’t do that to your hair!’

“Alright, that’s it! As soon as we get home, I’m cutting all your hair off !!”

Now, for the rest of us in line, it was all too familiar despite it being a tad dramatic, and especially for those of us who had managed to make it to the shops without our own little darlings in hand, it was more than a little amusing and a whole lot refreshing to not be the one delivering the diatribe in front of a captive audience for a change.

So who knows whether the “darling” in question did indeed get the impromptu haircut as threatened. What I do know is that I came home with my handful of groceries, gathered up my two kids in a bear hug and ruffled the living daylights out of their mop tops.

And revelled in the fact that I got to go out without them.

Jx
©2009