Grocery Ghosts

Sculpting three contributing members of humanity out of tiny terrorists is hard work on a normal day. But some days it seems like an impossible and gargantuan task.

My babies are sweet, kind, loving individuals. Except when they’re not. And now that I’m back at work in Corporate America, my arrival home marks the beginning of their witching hour.

On Monday, Andrew was traveling for work and when I got home, I realized that I had nothing for dinner. I would have ordered pizza, but I was also out of milk. I could have just placed an Instacart order, but the delivery time was hours away, and I could see by my children’s increasing nakedness that they’d never last that long.

So I piled them all into the minivan and headed up the hill to Safeway. Before they buckled their seat belts, Shephard announced, “I’ve made the world’s most powerful fist!” and then punched Holden in the face with it.

“Ah!” Holden screamed, “That was amazing! Let me try!”

“No sir,” I said, as I buckled them into their booster seats. “You two are good boys. You’re good brothers. You’re good sons. And you’ll keep your hands to yourselves.”

So they punched each other until I pulled the minivan into the Safeway.

Baby girl did not want to ride in the shopping cart. Shephard did. I tied to explain to him that the baby seat was for babies, not five-year-old boys with the world’s most powerful fist. He compromised and said he’d just hang on the back of the shopping cart.

What a perfect opportunity to test those powerful fists out again: the two boys took turns standing on the cart and trying to wrestle the other one off.

“Please boys,” I said sweetly, “we’re in public.”

Every three steps, baby girl stopped to inspect a can of beans, a box of Rice A Roni, a bag of organic kale, or a container of almonds. “Me hate this one,” she chirped, holding up a bag of spinach, and wiping her snotty nose with the palm of her hand. I whipped out my package of Handi-wipes, but it didn’t stop judgmental grocery shoppers from avoiding that bag of spinach. I can’t blame them. I wouldn’t want to buy a bugger bag of greens, either.

I tried to move quickly through the store: pizza, lactose-free milk for the baby with the tricky tummy, apple sauce, a carton of ice cream and a bottle of wine for mommy. But the boys kept disappearing and, eventually, I stopped looking for them. Then, as I turned the corner of aisle 15, there, in front of me, were my two precious angels cold-cocking each other in the kosher foods aisle, laughing hysterically.

A line of shoppers tried to both navigate their carts around the boys and glare at me at the same time.

Baby girl jumped into the fracas. “Me hit bubbas, too!”

And just like that, despite coping with their antics with the calm of Mother Teresa up to that point, I snapped.

I fucking lost it.

Deep down in my bones, I’m not a West-coast Whole Foods shopper with an infinite bank account and a preference for locally grown organic produce. I might look crunchy and techy and cool with my wooden glasses and disheveled designer blazer. But you don’t know me.

I’m a Southern Mama. Capitalized.

I abandoned my cart, marched down the grocery aisle toward the twisting, turning ball of baby limbs I had willingly brought into this world, grabbed the first arm I could get my hand around, and lined them up from tallest to shortest in front of the rye crackers.

Like some sort of demon, the Southern just came flowing out of me. I turned on my heel and said to those three monsters, “y’all are actin’ ugly in public and I swear on all that’s holy, I’m fixin’ ta find me a time out in the nastiest corner of God’s green Earth if y’all don’t follow behind me like GHOSTS for the rest of this shoppin’ trip.”

Their eyes were big around as saucers.

The eldest cut his eyes at his brother, who nodded his head. The boys said, in unison, “Yes, ma’am.”

And for the next six minutes I cruised up and down aisles full of shit I didn’t even need, stopping to smell candles and examining pet foods for animals I didn’t own. Because I could.

Because I’m the mama of them kids. And they owed me.