This is not my week…

I’ve been told that the following email I wrote to a friend should be put on my blog. So here goes, I hope others can find some amusement in my crappy day!

I almost lost my Schmidt (as they say in one of my favorite blogs, www.rantsfrommommyland.com) Monday night in Walmart w/ T. It was the longest check out experience with only 3 items in the history of Wal-Mart. Well, at least my history with Wal-Mart. Because I’m all hormonal and hair-triggery this week, I’m so happy I maintained my composure. I left work late, and when I got home, hubby was in the middle of cleaning the A/C coil outside. He mentioned going out to eat and I really needed to get invitation envelopes for the awesome ones I made for T’s birthday online. So he suggested I take T to Wal-Mart and pick up Chinese on the way home. Super. We start out at like 6:45, which is already kinda late in my book, and get to Wal-mart. Except I realized half way there that my cell phone has died & I don’t have a car charger for the new blackberry yet. So no phoning in the Chinese order from the Wal-Mart parking lot & breeze in to get it on the way home. Great. So I go in & find the envelopes, and go to find another 5 pack of matchbox cars to use as potty-training bribes, because even though I could carpet my living room in matchbox cars, I will do ANYTHING to get him out of pull-ups. And matchbox cars seem to work better than anything. So we’re cruising the toy dept. and he spots the monster trucks. Oh crap. I don’t know that Wal-mart well enough to avoid the aisle, but if it was Target, I could have totally side stepped that. I calmly explain that he hasn’t been good enough yet to get the 2 monster trucks on the table back, so I’m not going to buy him a new one. (If he’s “not nice” we take away a monster truck & it sits on the kitchen table, taunting him, until he’s good for a whole day & can get it back.) So we take 5 years to pick out a box of matchbox cars, because he’s tired and wired & completely ADD at this point, but I get him out of that aisle. Only to find monster trucks on an end-cap. And I see “Backwards Bob” which is one of his favorite trucks, and one I never see. So I tell him we’ll get Backwards Bob.  Except, he doesn’t want Backwards Bob. He wants something called “Rap Attack” (which is aptly named, now that I think about. My ears feel attacked if I hear rap.) because it has a bright green undercarriage. We compromise & get Pure Adrenaline, which is actually not a compromise since I told him we weren’t buying one. He’s tricky smart, that one.

We finally go to the checkout. There’s a line at each of the “check yourself out” registers, and I figure, this can’t take that long, right? WRONG. Apparently people who have no idea how to work those things are always the ones that wind up in front of me at one of those things. We stand there for what feels like 1/2 of eternity, and I decide that the express lane (10 items) w/ a cashier has to move quicker. We move over there and at first things seem good. I’m like 4th in line, and someone is already moving on. Super. Then these people whip out a Visa gift card, and the delay begins. After a while, the cashier walks off, probably to go find somebody, and I figure at this point the scan-it-yourself challenged people must have moved on. So I go back over there. WRONG AGAIN. So I’m still waiting in line, for what seems like the other 1/2 of eternity. I tell T to get his finger out of his nose & he WIGS OUT. Kinda doing a raspberry sound thing w/ his mouth /kinda spitting, throws down his copy of the invitation I gave him and when I take both sides of his head and say sternly & quietly “you better quit” he decides to SCREAM. Yes, our first public fit. So I tell him the monster truck is going back. I get the whole “Noooo!” and crying bit, but I maintained my composure and explained to him it was going back because he wasn’t being nice. And I asked him to REMEMBER what it was that he did that wasn’t nice. He actually calmed down, but he wasn’t too happy. I so wanted to just pick him up & leave Wal-Mart when he did that, but I REALLY needed those envelopes!

So by now, there’s still a line of people who can’t work the scanners. And since some of those were there to witness the fit, I decide to go back to the 10 items w/ the cashier line. I finally wait for the guy who worked the register like he was coated in molasses to ring us up & get out of there. 45 MINUTES LATER. I know I spent around 3/4 of that in line. And now it’s REALLY late and I still have to go over and wait for Chinese food. Get to the restaurant, threatened T w/ another monster truck taken away if he acts up, and go in. Thank goodness they are nice & it took less than 10 minutes to finish the order because T is WAY beyond tired at this point & wants really bad to take his truck (one he brought with him) & roll around on the floor. I have no idea why. We get home, and now T, who before was really excited about trying “Chinese noodles” aka chicken lo mein (I figure it’s gotta be more nutritious than sweet & sour chicken), suddenly doesn’t wan’t to eat it AT ALL. But he’ll chow down on the steamed broccoli from my General Tso’s in a heartbeat. Go figure. He eats some of hubby’s won tons from his soup and we finally get him to at least TRY a lo mein noodle, and lo & behold, he likes it! Then he starts eating it w/ his hands. We finally corralled him into bed right at 9, which is late for him. Monday was not my favorite day, for obvious reasons.

I think this WEEK is just not my week.  Last night I broke the carafe for the coffee pot while setting it up for this AM.  So no coffee for me this AM, and it’s my birthday.  RIP coffee pot.  And I was so desperate this AM I drank diet Mountain Dew.  Because the cat, who is normally banned from our bedroom because as a kitten he dive bombed us from the top of the headboard at like, oh, 2 AM, somehow got into the bedroom and started meowing at some hellish hour before it was light.  Maybe he just wanted to be the first to tell me happy bday?  Now I’ve got borderline-drinkable office coffee and trying to decide what to do for lunch.  A friend who was going to take me to lunch today is out with her mother who broke her hip last night.   I didn’t bring lunch today, which is small potatoes compared to having  a mother in the hospital with a broke hip, but still, not shaping up to be “my week”, is it?   That’s okay, I still have a super awesome kiddo, even if he throws fits in Wal-Mart, and I’m really looking forward to his birthday in a couple of weeks!  THAT I will have some control over & it will be great!

By the way, Rants from Mommyland is still all kinds of awesome, even if you don’t have kids.  There is the potential there to seriously pee your pants laughing, they are so hysterical!  They should have a warning that you may need a change of undies, Depends, or something when viewing their site.