Today we went to the store. That in and of itself was not out of the ordinary, i go to the grocery store generally once a week. It was slightly out of the ordinary, however, in the use of the pronoun, we. Today we went to the store. Not me alone save God and a handful of coupons. Nope, today bubs was sitting in a trailer recording a music festival- which meant mom went to the store with me.
Now we actually had a good time, at least for much of the trip. The parts that weren't really good were completely my fault as well. The trip, however, painted to me yet once again the ways in which my life is reminiscent of motherhood, but isn't.
There are several differences between shopping alone and shopping with mom. Firstly is the elephant in the room, the time factor. From leaving the house to pulling into the driveway, my shopping trip (in which we hit exactly one store though we did drive around some) took roughly three hours. Roughly three hours to shop at one store approximately fifteen minutes away from home.
Mom likes to look at things. She likes to find deals. She likes to call me back to look at cheap prices. This, of course can be actually kind of fun, as i try to cajole her to come along, and we just enjoy each others' company. However it can make for a quite slow trip through the store. In one aisle a mildly attractive seemingly older man kept smiling at our verbal interplay. It didn't appear to be the pitying or annoyed genre of smile, more like a honestly amused and affectionate consideration of the cute little old lady sort of smile. i fancied that he was the sort of guy who would treat someone like mom really well. The amusing point the the interplay was when mom started intently perusing the coffee. "Mom, you have never drank coffee," i said, or something close to it, trying to move us down the aisle. "Might be a good time to start" the man quipped before we parted ways.
Mom likes to suggest we buy various items. The amusing part of this is that she will generally eventually intersperse such requests with pointed comments about how much i've put into the cart, and questions about whether or not we have the money to purchase it all. There's a lingering awkwardness to this part of the trip. See, if a mother is telling her child she can not buy cookies because the cart already hold too many sweets, the average other shopper would not blink twice, this is commonplace. However, when i have the same conversation with mom i sometimes wonder if my fellow shoppers are judging the horrible ogre who will not allow her mother to choose what she buys and what she eats. They don't know that were i to let her put everything she wanted into the cart we would leave heavily laden and with much less money, after which she might ask why it all was purchased. They only see a grown woman ordering another grown woman around, and dictating her culinary selections.
At the end of the trip, we checked out at a register. Mom chatted up the kindly young woman behind us, who was patiently caring for her child while standing behind my (slightly less than normal but still rather fully) loaded cart and acting rather spacey. By this point i was undergoing some anxiety about my health (though i know i'm fine sometimes the anxiety gets the better of me) and was nearing the end of my patience (which not long before i was commending myself on). i was worried about having enough money (less in my account that i thought) and trying to watch this situation carefully. By the time we were through (with money to spare- woohoo!!) i was ready to leave. Which i did.
Mom however did not.
She didn't want to go, she was enjoying talking to people. She also had a quarter, i discovered when i gave up on her following me out. She wanted to know what to do with it. i tried giving it to the cashier who would not take it. She told me it had to go to the customer service desk- where no one was and a man was already waiting in frustration. For a quarter that we wanted to leave in case anyone else needed it, which in the end i was only doing to get mom to stop fixating and leave the store.
With some semblance of pleading in my voice i commented to mom that i wanted to go home. This is when it happened- the cashier excused herself from the man she was waiting on, took the quarter, and put it on the customer service desk for me, dismissing us. It was just like the kindly cashier you might see taking pity on the young mother with the screaming child.
Except that i. am. not. a. mother. and. my. mom. is. not. a. screaming. child. She was actually in a good mood. Yet the feeling was still there, and it was odd. Just something to note. The action was very much appreciated too.
Next weekend, i hope to have bubs with mom while i shop. Though shopping with mom can be fun, it transforms me form the powerful huntress to the harried mom. i enjoy my weekly powerful huntress delusion. i wonder if that's why you see so many single women in grocery stores. It's a place where we can still be actively serving our homes while still getting alone time and reveling in delusions of grandeur. Or, perhaps i am reading too much into this.
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