The Force

12.09.07

Sometimes I feel sorry for the world, for the force I have unleashed upon it.

Who knew?

 

Who knew that I would create a creature of such monstrous determination, such whirling, stomping, dancing, leaping, forward momentum that heaven help anyone or anything that blocks her path?

 

Take grocery shopping, for instance.  Simple enough, we need food, we go to the food store to get some.  It’s a fairly regular occurrence, and one that generally holds no real surprises.

 

I have no idea why it went so badly last time.  I had a list.  Usually, “Whoops, that’s not on the list,” works like a charm.  It’s a neutral third party.  It’s clear cut – it’s not on the list, therefore we aren’t buying it.  Simple.

 

The list works because I let her brainstorm with me what to put on it.  Oreos?  Hmm, well, we haven’t had Oreos for a while, so sure.  Let’s put Oreos on the list.  Microwave popcorn?  Mmm, yup, it goes on the list.  Apples?  No problem.  Apples are on the list.  Macaroni & Cheese – hell yeah, that’s on the list in four different varieties. 

 

Over-priced watermelon - not on the list.  Chocolate oranges – the fancy ones you bang on the counter that split into neat little slices of chocolate with a hint of orange flavor – not on the list.  No, not on the list.  No, that doesn’t mean scream for grandma and see if she’ll put it on her list, it means, “NO, it’s NOT on the list and we are NOT buying it.”

 

When my daughter is not happy she is not quiet about it.  Especially when she can run from mom to grandma and back not being happy. 

 

You know how at the grocery store you tend to sort of browse the same aisles with the same people?  You meet up in produce or juice, and sort of keep passing and saying excuse me to the same few people pretty much the whole time you’re in the store.  Well, by aisle 8 I was feeling pretty sorry for those people.

 

By the time we reached the meat department and I said “excuse me” to those same people for the 64859628th time since I aisle 1, I was fried.  Ok, fine, we’re just going to check out and wait for grandma in the truck.  I studied the check-out lines.  Could I wait, check-out, bag my groceries, AND leave the store with a living, breathing heathen? 

 

No.  I could not.

 

The whole way out to the truck I’m thinking, is it too much to ask to want to buy FOOD?  I mean, really.  Bless the Salvation Army bell-ringer who wished us a Happy Holiday and tried to get my daughter to smile.  My daughter who was freaking out because there was a stuffed animal in the abandoned cart. Screaming, crying, twisting, feet-dragging kind of freaking out.

 

Now I ask you why are there stuffed animals at the grocery store?  Do we poor benighted parents not have enough objects of desire to navigate in our retail lives as it is?  The grocery store used to be a fairly safe zone – huge bags of M&M’s (not on the list), one aisle of cookies (easily avoided), and cheap happy child-lottery machines lined up in a row at the end.  Except that suddenly there are stuffed animals in aisle 1.  Thanks a lot. 

 

Anyway.  We went to the truck, where we had an attitude adjustment.  Promises were made and deals were struck, and we decided perhaps we could retrieve the abandoned cart, grab some milk, and survive the check-out line.

 

I like to think that my quiet, snuffling, well-behaved child received some smirks or at least wan smiles from the people we’d completely annoyed throughout half of the grocery store, the ones who were no doubt thinking, if that were my kid we’d be going outside for an attitude adjustment.  But no, we’d lost our place and made our selections amid a new group of co-shoppers, shoppers who probably thought Mommy is a big meanie.  Especially the grandmotherly woman my daughter was talking to while I was picking out cheese.  The part of the conversation I overheard was in regards to the recent attitude adjustment, and it would not get me nominated for mommy of the year.

 

She is a force, I tell you.  I cannot imagine what sort of an adult she will be, but I expect her to be a mover and a shaker.  I used to think she’d be a movie-star, based on her penchant for drama, but these days I’m thinking more along the lines of director or producer.  More than anything she loves to be the boss.  Demands to be the boss.  The boss with a voice that will be heard.  And by golly, if she’s not happy, you will hear it. 

 

The world has my sympathy, but hopefully by the time the world has to contend with her, my job will be done.  And if the world comes knocking at my door, I’ll just give a toast with my martini glass and say, “May the Force be with you, because heaven knows you’ll never win if it’s against you.”