Allow me to treat you to a cellphone photo of one of my all-time favorite pursuits: a hardware store visit with one or both of the offspring. Consider it a humble place-holder here ’til I round up time to actually write something. Always easier said than done.
We are in aisle 51B: garden implements. Baba’s in 7th heaven. Boychild is too, since we are scooting through the store with him head first, me piloting (or rather careering) the craft from its nose end. He’s kind of like the decorative object at the prow of a ship. It’s the preferred mode of hardware store locomotion, if a bit unpredictable, since the steering mechanism of a grocery cart is basically the omnidirectional front two wheels, rear ones fixed. Whatever.
Whenever there’s an empty aisle, he announces, “Ready… set… GO!” And of course off we go. Unless Baba finds something she needs to examine, and she stops the craft. This is a high-risk activity (browsing), since in such cases he is nearly always struck with the impulse to lean over, pluck something out of the cart, and fling it. As depicted above.
Fortunately for us, he’s still in diapers. His sister and I let ourselves be a bit too carried away with the hardware store fun one time, and I have lived to regret it. Details here.
Heheh. I was expecting the old anecdote to involve peeing in floor-model toilets. I’ve heard of such things happening before among the newly toilet-enabled.
Boo loves hardware stores! And it sounds like we sharecart technique, too… Do you do the cart spin in the nice wide aisles?
Oh. My. God.
No, I do not. Or rather, have not, thusfar.
It’s a revelation. So far I’ve only spun the fancy-pants hi-lo stroller jobbie. Which I can totally do in the smallest spot. Talkin’ 5′ x 5′ square, probably more like 4′ x 4′. I’d say 3′ square but I think the wheel base front to back might be 36″.
See, now I avoid stores like the plague when I have children in tow. I can only admire your retail fortitude, because if the choice is to have them with me, I usually find a way to do without whatever thing I thought I needed.
You’d think this would be an excellent money-saving feature to my children.
Hah.
Ironically, I had just see this for the first time an hour or so before reading your post.