A scary Halloween story.

My daughter is feeling much better now, to the point where she hasn't quite stopped complaining about pain from her incision, but we are starting to notice that she tends to do it when it's time to unload the dishwasher.  So it's about time I start buckling down and blogging a little more if I can.

I'll start with a story that doesn't have me in it.

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On the day before Halloween, Mark dropped the three big kids off at religious ed and then rushed off to do the grocery shopping as quickly as possible so that he would have time to stop by the hardware store and buy dowels for my nine-year-old's Archer-Cloaked-In-Black-From-Head-To-Toe costume.

Note the dowels emerging from the quiver on his back.  Mark is now an expert in duct-tape fletching.

 

Anyway, Mark rushed my three-year-old in the Car Cart through the grocery store, made it to the big-box hardware store, grabbed dowels and headed for the checkout with the 3yo in tow.

Just before they got to the checkout, Mark remembered that the three-year-old had been extra-wiggly back in the grocery store, and asked him:  "[Three-year-old], do you need to go to the bathroom before we check out?"

"No, Daddy."

But that's always a dangerous question.  Much as one should not point a gun at an aggressor unless one is prepared to deliver a disabling shot, one should never ask whether a three-year-old child needs to go to the bathroom before entering the checkout lane.  All asking does is begin the process of percolating the idea through the brain and down to the nervous system, eventually to find its way to the bladder.   One should either issue a firm parental command ("Time for the potty!") or else remain silent.

Mark entered the self-checkout lane and began scanning dowels.  Three-quarters of the way through the transaction, the three-year-old informed him:  "Daddy!  I need to go to the bathroom!"

Uh-oh.  "I'll take you to the bathroom as soon as I'm done paying for this stuff," Mark told him.  Then he let go of the three-year-old's hand to extract the credit card from his wallet.

A moment later, the 3yo darted out of Mark's peripheral vision.  Mark looked up and saw him running toward the front of the store, where the big sliding entry doors are.

And also where the displays are.  Display shower enclosures, and display vanity sinks, and...

There was an attendant there to assist people in the self-checkout lanes.  Mark handed her the dowels, screeched, "Hold these!" and sprinted after the three-year-old, who was already lifting the lid (and the seat) of a display toilet and pulling down the front of his pants.    Mark scooped him up from behind just barely in time.

"He was so very, very confused," Mark told me later.

Mark carried the objecting three-year-old back to the checkout lane and one-handedly retrieved his dowels from the attendant.  On the way out he passed a sign that said "Ring Bell if you received excellent service!"

Mark rang the bell.  After all, he did get his dowels back.

Comments

[mandamum]

Ahahahahah! That made (all of our) morning this morning :) Glad he got there in the nick of time, instead of just after.

[Lesley]

Oh this brings such memories. We were shopping for wallpaper and with our daughters who were two and three, were talking to a salesman when 2 year old came up and said very proudly "Mum. I've been for a wee wee". I checked and she was dry, so said that dreaded question "Where?". The salesman burst out laughing when she pointed to the display bathroom! He was very kind and says it happens a lot!