Give me an hour, twenty bucks, and a shopping cart at the Dollar Store and you’ll have one happy Momma.
Where else can a mom of five go shopping and feel like she’s made of millions? Hey, I can afford EVERYTHING at the dollar store! And when I’m feeling particularly generous, I’ll even buy EACH OF THE KIDS a treat. Whoa, look out! It’s Mommy Warbucks!
So I was at the Dollar Store the other day scoping out the items I’d be back for sans kiddos. I was planning my “Santa Stocking Stuffer” shopping expedition… something I’d have to do later with my two toddlers who have no long-term memory.
They’re great! I can take them through toy store after toy store, get their opinion on every single item, pile toys and books in the cart, bring them home and wrap the presents in front of them and four weeks later… GENUINE SURPRISE!
But short-term memory, on the other hand, has its drawbacks. Especially when it’s mine and I’m severely lacking in it. (When am I going to learn?)
I take my toddlers to the Dollar Store and THIS time I don’t put each in a separate cart. I try to save time by putting the two-year old in the seat and the four-year old in the cart itself — with the items I’m buying.
I’m stocking up on necessities for around the house, boring things like dish soap and barbecue sauce. While I’m debating which salad dressings I’ll buy, I hear “blub, blub, blub” and I’m not smart enough to figure it out instantaneously, I actually think, “Hey, that’s sort of a catchy… TUNE!” It’s my four-year old with the dish soap, cap off, bottle completely upside down, standing in the cart with a big grin on her face pouring soap all over the other items.
I start mumbling furiously under my breath, something which tends to make me look like a chicken, especially when I get my head going side-to-side and my hair, twisted up loosely in the back, starts bobbing. My daughter breaks up in little cackles… I’m slipping all over the floor while I try to push the cart out of the orange soap puddle and the little one, pleased with Mommy’s performance, cheers and exclaims: “Bubble!”
Yes, there are bubbles everywhere and Don Ho comes to life on the intercom… something about a luau on aisle five, but I’m not sticking around for it. I leave a conspicuous trail of orange dish soap from the aisle to the checkout and the cashier asks if I’d like another bottle.
“No, we’ll take this one.”
WHY do I say that? Especially when it’s not going to cost anybody more than a few pennies? Because it’s the principle of the thing. My daughter spilled about twenty-seven cents worth. That means I still have seventy-three cents left and I’ll be darned if I’m going to WASTE that.
Hey, I might be Mommy Warbucks at the Dollar Store, but when it comes to pinching pennies, I’m still Scrooge, still watching that budget and still making every cent count.
Besides, I’ve got to hurry home and bathe my barbecue sauce and salad dressings and use up the soap I rinse off of them to do a whole load of dishes.
Tell Don I’ll have to take a rain check.
(Jelly Mom is written by Lisa Barker, a busy mom of five, and syndicated through Martin-Ola Press/Parent to Parent. To read more, visit www.JellyMom.com.)
