When I was a stay-at-home mom, I had to do the grocery shopping with my kids.I’m not telling you this now so that you’ll feel retroactively sorry for me. But it is something that sticks with you. I didn’t have the luxury of getting a babysitter for weekly food shopping. If I could have afforded that, I would’ve used that money to go have a couple of cosmos in the middle of the day. Every day.
But no, like most of my parental counterparts, I did my weekly grocery shopping with between one and three kids in tow, looking like shit, and often wearing one earring, zero bras, and mismatched socks. I would start out hopeful, planning to use coupons, compare prices, and plan my meals on the fly using whatever was on sale that week. But very quickly I’d forget the affordability of the entire affair, and just hope that no one had to go to an out-of-network ER before I could get the groceries home. In the end, if we had in our possession a couple of foods that we weren’t allergic to, I deemed it a resounding success.
I once ran into my neighbor, Michael, at the grocery store. At that time, I had two little ones and was pregnant. The boys were playing some kind of Giant baseball game, randomly tagging each other with bananas and sliding into Potatoes/Yams. I was opening a box of Cap’n Crunch.
“He-e-e-eey . . .” Michael said, too late to back away and pretend he didn’t recognize me. He couldn’t hide the trapped look in his eyes. Shit.
“Hey Michael, how’s it going?”
“So,” he said, “you grocery shop with the kids?”
I didn’t understand the question. Who else would I bring?
“You don’t?”
Michael explained to me that when he left work, he did the grocery shopping, errands, and any and all away-from-home adult activities before picking up his daughter from daycare. He admitted that he sometimes even went to see a movie. An actual movie. In a movie theater. Unaccompanied by children. It was a huge mistake to reveal that to me, such as I was at that stage of my life. It’s something I’ve held against him ever since.
I told Michael that I tried to make the best of shopping with the kids. I refused to chase after them, I didn’t demand that they stay in the cart or even anywhere near the cart, I didn’t yell at them if they opened food or knocked down fruit pyramids or squeezed the Charmin. In fact, I let them do whatever the hell they wanted to do, as long as they let me throw a couple things in the cart and get a check written at the register.
For the most part, they kept their side of the bargain. Only twice did they get so riled up that one of them threw up, which was a major distraction. Only once did they get me so sidetracked that I drove home without the groceries. (I had driven home, got the kids set up in front of the TV, made a pot of coffee and sat down to drink a cup, when I reached for the almost-empty milk carton and thought, “Didn’t I just buy milk?” Uhhhhh. When I drove back to the store, my grocery cart was still there, waiting forlornly for me to load it into the trunk.)
So you might say I made the best of it. I was pretty proud of my ability to not have an anxiety attack every time I needed to go into the store.
Today, with my creativity at an all-time high, I would have taken it to the next level. So for those of you who are still grocery shopping with your little hellions, I’ve come up with some strategies for making the whole process more fun.
Don’t try these at home. Try them at the grocery store.
1. Taunt the law
Swear loudly and see how long it takes you to get arrested. Get nasty, now! None of this damnit to hell stuff. Draw from your inner college sophomore and let ‘er rip. For context, read the story about the woman who got arrested because another woman heard her tell her husband to stop squishing the f***ing bread in front of her children. Later the narc-y lady said she was sorry, specifically, “I definitely hate that they put you in a police car.” If you can manage to get a ride home from the store in a cruiser, be sure they don’t forget the groceries.
2. Be British
Being British is a fun game for all occasions, not just when you need to stay sane in the grocery aisles. Practice your accent by speaking loudly to the children. See how long it takes for them to start answering you in Cockney dialect. (Because as much of a pain as kids are, they sometimes jump on board when it’s fun.) Buh mum! Fathah said I could get the crisps this woik! Ask unsuspecting shoppers where the salad cream is or if the store carries Spotted Dick.
3. Count show-off parents
You know what I’m talking about. They’re everywhere you go, but they congregate in grocery stores – mostly Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s and your local high-end gourmet markets, but really, they’re everywhere. Counting them in a regular or discount grocery store just makes the challenge fiercer. You get a point for overhearing a parent do any of the following:
* Loudly practicing or quizzing his/her toddler on letters, numbers, shapes or state capitals, praising said toddler even when he/she screws it up and gets it totally wrong. Daddy is so proud of you! Always, no matter what Even if you do think that Eisenhower ended the Vietnam War.
* Loudly over-enunciating the list of ingredients in organic packaged foods and explaining to a child why mommy and daddy don’t buy icky junk food. Because it’s not good for your little body and you’ll get a bad, bad, tummy ache. Get a bonus point if the show-off parent uses grown-up technical or medical terms like esophagus or chyme or bowel movement.
* Loudly speaking in a British accent. (Counting yourself is allowed.)
* Being pointedly too patient with bratty kids. Not losing their shit when the kid rams a cart that he has no business being in charge of into another shopper’s ass. And I’m not talking about the exasperated, I-just-don’t-care-anymore manner, that’s accompanied by quietly slinking off, hiding behind your greasy bangs (that’s not show-off parenting; that’s just real life). I’m talking about the parent who, after the cart-ramming incident, puffs out his/her chest and sprouts a GD tiara and a sign that says Having a Spirited Child is My Cross to Bear So You’ll Just Have to Bear It With Me.
4. Send your kids on missions
This is a real thing that I did all the time when my kids were shopping with me. As we entered the store, I would stop the cart, look at my list and give each child an assignment. They called it going on missions. I called it divide and conquer, enhanced human productivity, and borderline illegal child labor. Their missions were to find breakfast bars that weren’t crunchy but weren’t filled with goop, to pick out Campbell’s soup that everyone will eat right out of the can, cold, and to get any medium-sized pickles that were on sale. My mission was to open the Cheez-Its and get some eaten and the box closed back up again before they got back.
5. Switch roles
Don’t you ever get tired of being the parent? Tell your kids that you want to be the kid for a change. Let them pick out seven protein-starch-vegetable, well balanced dinners, fruit that’s not bruised or on the Don’t Eat This or You’ll Die This Week lists, and snacks that aren’t going to give the whole family cancer. Add incentive by telling them it’s a math lesson and if they don’t do a good job, you’ll home-school them so they can do it every week until they get it right. Meanwhile, you have about an hour to write your name on the fogged-up freezer doors, make a necklace out of the deli numbers, and read magazines at the checkout. Don’t forget the Cheez-Its.
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If you liked this, you’ll also like:
Hey Look at Me! I’m a Good Parent! Show-off parents are the worst.
Serious Parenting, Seriously Where I admit to giving my toddler a margarita by mistake and not knowing what 1-2-3 Magic is.
Shopping With the Upper Crust Muffy, are we out of brie?
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Read more of Diane’s Just Humor Me columns here. Sign up for our weekly e-newsletter to get new blog post notifications. And if you like her blog, you’ll love her book, Home Sweet Homes: How Bundt Cakes, Bubble Wrap, and My Accent Helped Me Survive Nine Moves.
