Saturday Night at WalMart (aka Life Among the Commoners)

I debated on whether to blog about this for two reasons:

1. One of the two pictures I have to go with it is a VERY unflattering picture of me.

AND

2. My husband said I sounded really snobby when I said, "I feel so common."

But, I had to go pick up a cake from Shelby last night so I was telling Marie and the family all about our crazy night. We had been discussing children getting out of control, so I felt compelled to share about our night. Really, I was right in on the mischief, but we had a lot of fun. Marie got really tickled and told me I needed to blog it, and my husband, who took the horrible pic, told me if I didn't he would give the pic to Marie who has many more readers on her blog than I do. SO, without further ado...


We ate supper at Fernando's last night and while there, I let both of the kids have a few sips of my sweet tea. BIG mistake! It doesn't take much caffeine to wind them up, and they were already partially wound anyway. We also got fried ice cream to share for dessert. BIG mistake number two. Most of the time, the kids listen well to us and we run errands with minimal correction and misbehavior but I think the combination of caffeine and ice cream had some sort of chemical effect on all of our brains.


Now, we finished up supper and headed across the street to grab a few necessities from WalMart. Daniel parked by a light pole and as soon as we were out of the car, Carter was on the pole climbing. WHAT?!?!?!? He has never done such before. I hollered at him to get down. We headed into the store and Daniel took Carter to look at Legos while Addie and I went to grab the groceries. We met in the middle and kind of strolled around a bit. Daniel said he had found me a new bike. It was a shiny blue bike with whitewall tires and a massive seat (yay!) , so, I decided to take it for a ride. Here comes the embarrassing part, ok? Carter was leading the way, running in front of me with Addie staying right beside me, and I rounded the corner to come face to face with Daniel's cell phone. ARGH! He got me. Here it is. Ready?

I am not pedaling because when I saw him taking my pic, I started laughing so hard I had to put my feet down. I couldn't even brake, I was in such hysterics.

We managed to make it through the checkout line with our kids pointing to every point of sale display and informing us that they wanted it all. I kept telling them no, not realizing I was getting a little louder with each "no". I finally realized it and leaned over to Daniel to say, "I feel so common!"

"WHAT?" he said.

"You know, only the common people come to WalMart to yell at their kids! We have lost it!" (Marie helped me feel slightly better by pointing out that the commoners also smack their kids around while everyone tries not to watch... At least we weren't there.)

As we got to the car, they were still in high gear. Really, nothing bad had been done but they are just usually more contained than they were. I muttered something about "tearing someone up" as they climbed into the van. The back hatch was open and I was putting bags in when this was said. Carter and Addie both start to cry, and Carter yells, "Don't kill us, please!" Now, I have NO IDEA where this came from. At this point, I had a desire to turn around whip out a bullhorn and say, "We homeschool. Just turn us in." Really, we were the same people before we homeschooled but at least now we have something to blame it on, right? :) I went to put up the buggy and Daniel pretended that he was going to drive off without me. But I was ok because if he did, I planned on going into WalMart, buying a paperback book and a coke, and finding a nice computer chair to curl up in for the night. Really, you could probably survive for MONTHS at WalMart. What a vacation that would be!

But alas, Daniel stopped the car and I climbed in with the savages and informed Carter that "tearing up" is just a phrase for a sound spanking, and that no one was killing anyone. Daniel and I were cracking up, though, because of the overdramatic reaction. We were just really tickled.

There were three ingredients that WalMart doesn't carry that I needed, so Daniel stopped at Kroger and I ran in. Upon coming out, I discovered this:

Yes, my common husband let the kids get up on top of the car. They were hooting and hollering and loving every minute of it.

So, there you are. For one evening, we were the people that I always want to smack. And you know what?? We laughed all night long and had so much fun. But I think I'll be ok if we only have one night a year like that. And our new catchprase is... "Because I'm a commoner!"