Every Friday afternoon of this school year, I pay GOOD MONEY to drop Irene off at a nursery school while Colum is at his half-day kindergarten so I can have two freaking hours to myself. (And by “to myself,” I mean myself and the baby.) Sometimes I’ll meet a friend for a coffee or take care of something around the house, but usually I go shopping. I’ll either go grocery shopping and run errands in the neighbourhood or I’ll hit up Costco for gas and smokes (not for me) and assorted giant-sized boxes of dried goods.
But not last Friday. Nope, last Friday I had the brilliant idea to make my annual pilgrimage to a Loblaws Superstore instead. I was lured by the promise of cheap and trendy Joe Fresh fashions and the idea that I could also do my grocery shopping at the same time and, hey, it’s really not that far away.
It started out well enough with quick and easy school drop offs and Mary nodding off in the car on the way up. The trip was quiet and peaceful enough, in fact, that it reminded me of those people who forget they even have a baby in the car and accidentally leave them in their car seats to bake to death. Ohmygod, that could be me, I thought. I mean, for, like, the last half of All Apologies on the car radio and wasn’t even consciously aware of the baby in the backseat. And aren’t you always supposed to leave your purse in the back, so you’ll never forget? And my purse was next to me in the front! What kind of a mother was I?!
This train of thought quickly brought my anxiety level up to a nice quiet roar just in time to hit a massive traffic jam. There I was idling in traffic on some ugly stretch of Weston Rd. with the sun beating down on my un-air-conditioned car. The sweat was starting to bead on the back of my neck and I was muttering curse words under my breath at the thought of my sleeping baby being scorched by sun and suffocated by exhaust fumes. Screw this noise, I thought, and made a quick right onto a side street. I wasn’t exactly sure where it led, but I was confident I’d be able to wend my way up to the store somehow. See you suckers!
So the side street just looped back over to Weston Rd. and dropped me back into the traffic jam one measly little block north. You saw that coming, didn’t you? We finally made it to the Superstore and scored a nice-enough parking spot. I scooped Mary up in my arms, planning to plop her in a shopping cart but a sudden allergy attack sent us running to the bathroom first. Ah, the old relieve yourself in a public bathroom while holding a squirmy near-nine-month old in your lap gag. It’s a good one. I changed Mary while I was there, tossing a wet cloth diaper directly into my purse because why would I come fully prepared to change a diaper when I could make all my belongings smell like urine instead?
Stepping out of the bathroom, I tried to get my bearings. This store is huge and I couldn’t even figure out where to get a shopping cart and flyer. So I inched over to a cart that seemed to have been left in the middle of nowhere and looked around. I dangled the baby over the seat, craned my neck in all directions and then quickly buckled her in. We were off, whistling; nothing to see here folks; not a stolen shopping cart in sight.
Whee! Shopping with my mom. What could go wrong?
First stop was the Joe Fresh section. Have you ever been to a Joe Fresh? It’s not like they arrange the clothes in any sort of order that might make it easy for you to pop in and pick up a top or two. Instead, it’s a maze of shiny, trendy fashions that appeal to your inner 21-year old and make you forget about your outer mother-of-three-ness. There were dresses marked down and flirty tops and cute shoes and clearance jeans and then, turn the corner, and there were different dresses and marked down tees and so on and so on ad infinitum. Really, I couldn’t find an end to it. Mindful of my postpartum curves and having just come to terms with the need for some proper support in the form of a not-very-dainty nursing bra, I picked up a navy blue tank top and some burgundy pants that caught my eye. I also wanted to pick up a baseball cap for Colum, but the selection was pretty poor so I wound up with a teensy little denim cap because I guess I forgot how old he is?
I kept wandering around looking for a fitting room and getting distracted by the merchandising. It’s a bona fide trap in there, people, let me tell you. Bathing suits? I need a bathing suit! I puzzled over the suits for quite a few minutes before deciding against them and played the same game of chicken with fancy baby shoes and little girl sandals. I finally gave up and was ready to tackle the next employee I saw for directions to the fitting room. That’s when I turned the corner and lo! Behold! Fitting rooms!
I quickly pulled the top on while repeatedly pulling Mary back out from under the door and placing her in the far corner of the change room. She thought that game was pretty fun-freaking-tatstic. The top actually looked good; better than I’d hoped even. And I totally would have bought it if the back didn’t cut so far in around the arms revealing all kinds of ugly nursing bra action. This is karma for all those years of waifish, bra-optional clothes shopping when I couldn’t figure out why other people were so picky about their tops. Then I pulled on the pants and — OMG NO! I guess I didn’t look very closely at the rise, but I assumed that they would at least cover my ass and perhaps meet halfway to my belly button. I mean, I guess they “fit” in that they were the right size, but the way they just sat under my three-kids-and-twenty-extra-pounds-worth of belly pooch, kind of propping it up for display was not right. IT WAS NOT RIGHT. There were parts of me angled in such a way in that three-way-mirror that I should never have had to see.
Then, overcome with despondence, I grabbed a Joe Fresh necklace on my way out of the section. Because if there’s anything I need more of in my life, it’s cheap, plastic jewelry. Whatever, I didn’t have time to think it through because it was suddenly 2:15 and I had to pick up Colum at 3:00 and you know how bad traffic was getting there. I quickly thumbed through the flyer and tried to prioritize a few sale items and whatever we’d need for the next day or two.
Did I tell you the store is massive? It’s massive and I hardly ever shop there, so I couldn’t find a bloody thing on the list. I finally tracked down the chicken breasts that were on sale and some peppers and asparagus to go with them. I was really starting to worry about making it to the school on time, but was also fading fast after not eating much all day. Nothing in the bakery section was speaking to me, so I just made my way to the cashiers. They weren’t even busy; maybe I’d finally caught a break.
I lined up behind a man with a small basket of items and a woman already in the middle of paying for her groceries. I checked the time on my Blackberry, 2:25, dropped it back into my purse, and grabbed a chocolate bar from the display. (Some kind with almonds, if you must know.) And I waited. After the world’s longest check out in the history of check outs, the first lady was finished and the cashier started in on the man’s stuff. “Can you tell me if you have this?” and he handed her a slip of paper. “Wasp traps?” she asked. “We should.” They then proceed to discuss where the wasp traps would be kept if they had them. The man claimed they were not there. She phoned somebody else to ask after the traps and confirmed where they should be. “Yeah,” he said, “That’s what she told me when I asked her before.”
So, let me get this right. Buddy had already tracked down the appropriate person who would be able to tell him if the traps were in stock and where they would be, hypothetically, if they were in stock, which they weren’t. He already knew this. But he still needed to ask the cashier (who, no offense, was one of the slowest individuals I’ve come across in recent memory) if she knew whether they were anywhere. Because maybe the cashier had some secret stash of wasp traps she was hoarding away just for special customers and OMG, THERE ARE PEOPLE WITH LIVES WAITING HERE. By this point, Mary had been complaining and I was holding her on my hip, unable to obsessively check the time. But I really needed to make a show of checking the time. “Excuse me,” I asked the man behind me,”Do you have the time?” “Around 2:30,” he said. “2:30!” I exclaimed. Then I sighed and fidgeted and fidgeted and sighed. The man and the cashier looked at me and then he proceeded to describe these particular wasp traps in detail just for interest’s sake. I have never been so close to killing a man.
And, really, all I was buying was a too-small baseball cap, a tawdry piece of jewellery, some chicken and veg and a chocolate bar. It’s not like I wouldn’t have to go shopping again, like, later that day. But finally she was done with him and was able to slowly and painstakingly ring my order up. Yes, I needed bags. Two? Whatever. You’re the cashier. Can’t you just bag my groceries and see how many I need? But, no, they don’t do that anymore, do they? Because we’re all supposed to bring our own bags, suddenly no cashier is capable of bagging groceries and we all have to scramble around doing it ourselves.
So of course traffic was miserable and Mary cried half the way. I was at least able to snag one of the parking spots on the side street only a block or so away from the school. I picked her up and ran down the street with her, stroller be damned, and made it just in the nick of time.
Kidding! We were totally late. This teacher is going to be so happy when she won’t have to wait around with Colum every Friday afternoon.