more adventures in groceryland

I took Winter and Adelyn to Vons to pick up a couple of things and kill time before we picked up Mya from school yesterday. We stopped at the Starbucks inside for our regular order of 3 tall ice waters. Addie loves anything with a straw right now so it distracts her for about three minutes while I get whatever I need to get. 

As I was placing my order a lady walked up and put her shopping cart beside me to talk to the baby, completely blocking me from Vons entirely so I had to go around her and the whole Starbucks area after offering to pay for my waters. 

She was one of those very chatty strangers. In two minutes she had shared with the barista and me a complete saga of how she almost lost her $100 sunglasses given to her from her daughter in the Air Force and found them in her laundry hamper. I faked a smile while yelling over to winter to come back and stand with me as she often wanders off. 

As we waited for our ice waters, I lost winter as I often do and called out her name but she didn't answer as she often does not. The chatty stranger informed me that she was sitting on the floor blocking people from getting through the main entrance to the produce.  I firmly asked her to get up and she ignored me as usual. 

Then an elderly lady just entering the store began pushing her shopping cart toward my 4 year old who was still camped out on the floor. There was no way to get to her in time with all the obstacles and a chatty lady in my way. So I told her to get up again which she ignored again and I rolled my eyes figuring she would probably move if the lady got close enough to her. Or she would be hit by a shopping cart and learn to listen to mom. 

The chatty stranger saw what was happening and frantically yelled to the older lady to stop because there was a small child on the floor and going her super fast elderly speed, she would surely kill her. The white-haired lady said something along the lines of "Oh my goodness! I didn't even see her!" Winter moved and walked over to me kind of confused as to why they were making such a huge commotion. The chatty lady walked over to me and grabbed my arm and said
"Thank goodness I said something!" To that I replied, "Yeah imagine what could have happened." I politely thanked her, grabbed our ice waters and we were on our way to the produce section.

I read something on Facebook a few days ago that listed the things you worry about the more kids you have. By the time the 3rd and 4th come along, your long list of things like starilized pacis, matching socks, cute outfits and elderly women pushing empty shopping carts becomes a very short list of things like sharp knives, highways and contagious diarrhea. So true.