The Grocery Store

While at Walmart a couple days ago I noticed a young boy crying and squealing for some item his dad wouldn't buy him. I don't ever recall throwing a tantrum for something I wanted at the store, but I sure did have my fair share of instances that embarrassed my parents. The incidents mostly involved fighting with Josh.


I was pretty young when these grocery store fights would occur but I do remember them occurring. Apparently these fights were frequent enough that my mom relegated my dad to taking Josh and I to the store. This, I believe, was an effort to get revenge on my father for giving my mother two rambunctious boys. It might have also been an effort to get my dad to only make one trip to the store. My father had a habit of forgetting what he was sent to the store to get. The most famous of these instances being when my dad was sent to the store to get milk. The first time he came back he had some devil's food cookies, chips-ahoy, and potato chips. He was sent back to the store when my mother discovered that he had not completed the assigned mission. The second trip he came back with some beef jerky, some salami sticks, cheese, and some cereal. Upon return his stash of junk food was looked upon with disdain and he was immediately mobilized by commander in chief mom back to the store. On this third and final trip he completed his mission, this time with some ice cream and soda-pop en tote.

Anyway, the fighting I remember occurred at a local grocery store. My dad liked to go to a store called Stan's Market. It was a smaller mom and pop's type grocery store that also happened to be one of the stores nearest to our house. I was sitting on the bottom of the cart and Josh was pushing the cart from behind. Josh and I started to argue about who was steering the cart (me with my legs, or Josh by pushing from behind- it only makes sense that the guy under the cart should be the one to steer, right!?). Pretty soon there was pushing and assorted punching and kicking involved. We were arguing and yelling and making a pretty big scene in the small quiet store. Before I knew it I noticed that my dad and the cart were nowhere in sight. We had been abandoned at the grocery store!

Josh and I began the frantic search for my dad, who apparently had decided to completely deny any connection he had with the two ill tempered boys fighting in the milk isle and to move to a different isle while we concluded our fight. We eventually found him and all was right again with the world. His tactic was fairly effective, it ended the fight had we were shopping in peace again. Even though he denies it he must have been distracted by our fighting because he kept asking what is was we had been sent to the store to get; we answered devil's food cookies, chips ahoy, and potato chips!