There was a list and I never deviated from the list. It had eggs, milk, yogurt, cheese, meat, cereal, vegetables, and fruit. Too much fruit, too many vegetables: bananas, three different kinds of berries, apples, oranges, lettuce, carrots, peppers, parsley, and more. I was in the minivan, scouting the list, and I knew right away that it demanded way too much time in the produce section. It was always my mission to get in and out of the grocery store as quickly as possible. One time, I made it to the store and back home in just thirty-eight minutes with both kids in tow. I was determined to beat that record, but the more time I spent in the produce section picking and weighing shit while two hundred old people milled about groping for Fuji apples, the more likely it was that I would fail.
I had two coupons in my back pocket that my wife said I should use at the register to save money. But I considered those coupons an optional luxury. Using coupons meant that I would have to rely on a clerk to scan them, and that one of the coupons would inevitably scan wrong, and that the manager would be called in, and that I would be stuck in that store for nine years. It wasn’t worth saving thirty cents on a box of orzo if I couldn’t beat the record.
There were four options for handling the children at the store. I could get one of those mammoth carts that were shaped like fire trucks and strap both kids into the cab up front. But those things were vile. They took up too much space in the aisle, and grocery store managers always made sure to litter every aisle with four hundred stand-alone displays for Cajun seasoning that were just wide enough to destroy traffic flow. It should be legal to take your cart and blast straight through these displays, as if they were fruit carts in a movie car chase. Also, the fire truck carts never had enough room for actual food. And my children always wanted to get out of them halfway through.
Another option was to put my son in a regular cart and let my daughter roam free. This never worked because my son would see my daughter waltzing around freely and realize that he was getting a raw deal. I could also let both kids roam free, but that usually ended with them having a slap fight in the freezer aisle. Instead, my strategy was to let them push around the little green kiddie carts provided by our store while I went about the business of actual shopping. My kids went running for the kiddie cart section as I grabbed a self-scanner. All the kiddie carts were taken.
“There are no carts!” my daughter said.
“You guys can hang on the side of my cart,” I said. Now, this was a horrible thing to suggest. There are diagrams all over every shopping cart that tell you to not do this. The girl had a penchant for hanging off the front of the cart and then jumping off as it was rolling forward, allowing the cart to break both her ankles quickly and efficiently. But time was of the essence, so I grasped for the quickest and easiest possible solution. No way I was gonna get a fire truck cart.
Then, by the grace of God, a store worker came by with two green kiddie carts for my kids.
“Thank you so much,” I said to him. I turned to my kids. “What do you guys say to the nice man for giving us these great carts?”
My son looked up at him and shouted out, “WHAT’S UP, FUCKFACE?!”
He had just watched a Thomas the Tank Engine DVD where someone says something that sounds like “WHAT’S UP, FUCKFACE?!” but is not “WHAT’S UP, FUCKFACE?!” But when my son repeated it, it sounded very much like “WHAT’S UP, FUCKFACE?!” I bent down and looked my son in the eye.
“No, no, no. We don’t say that. I know you’re not trying to say anything bad, but it sounds like something bad.”
“WHAT’S UP, FUCKFAY?!”
The nice store worker walked away, unfazed. He was clearly used to children shouting random crap inside the store.
“Seriously, what is it that you’re saying?” I asked my son. “‘What’s up, Front Case?’”
“WUZZOUT, FUCKFACE?!”
Other shoppers began to stare.
“You know what? Let’s just move along.”
The children began fighting over who got to use the first green cart.
“I want it!” the girl screamed.
“Me too!” said the boy.
“They’re the same cart!” I said. “Do you not see this? There is literally no difference between these carts. They are the SAME.”
“I want it!” she said.
“WHAT’S UP, FUCKFACE?!”
“I’m leaving to go shopping,” I said. “You two can jolly well sort this out yourselves.” This is what you have to do as a parent. You have to let the kids fight it out or else they’ll constantly look to you to solve their disputes and then bitch about the way you solved them.