Trust Me, H.E.B. -- You Don't Want Me Making A Commercial

H.E.B., that temple of grocery goodness, is running a campaign right now where shoppers can submit their homemade commercial for a chance to win all sorts of prizes, including groceries for a year. Don't get me wrong, I would be lost without Hill Country Fare, but yesterday was one of those shopping days where it took every bit of self-respect I had left to not curl up in the parking lot and cry. And the good-natured H.E.B. employees would probably benefit from training to identify those mothers on the brink of a nervous breakdown on the way out of the store, so that they don't risk life and limb handing these mothers a contest form as they leave the store.

It started out innocently enough, despite the fact that I had just resorted to a full-body tackle to keep John from dismantling a display of cards in WalMart. But having survived that, I thought that HEB would be a breeze.

We drove to the super-sized H.E.B. near our house. Not the Plus, because I'm just not that crazy. But the one a good deal larger than the one we normally go to. They make fresh tortillas. And they have a gelatto drive-through. I'd like to say that the promise of getting John's special yogurt without an extra trip to Whole Foods was the reason we went there, but it was the gelatto. Let's be honest.

I thought that a race-car cart might give John just enough distraction to make it through the store. He's been really into cars lately. There was one in the cart rack. I put him in, his face lights up, and I'm smugly confident that I've made the right choice. Until I notice that the seatbelt is broken. I am faced with a choice. Option A: Take him out of the race car, use a normal basket, and endure the wrath. Option B: Move approximately 9 other normal carts, plus 2 of the 2-seater plastic carts, to get to the only other race car available. Option C: Throw caution to the wind and go with the broken seat belts. You know me, Captain Safety -- so off in the busted up cart we went.

The first few minutes passed innocently enough. John calling out the fruits and vegetables as I put them in the cart, and helpfully steering with his little steering wheel. Onward to the deli.

Let me pause here to describe our ensemble. Having left my hairdryer in Katy, I was sporting that sophisticated air-dryed look, while John's navy track suit was covered with cat and dog hair. (Not that different from everything else we own, but something about navy fleece just makes it that much more obvious.) Oh, and there were kolache crumbs on both of us.

While I was waiting for my deli order, another mom pushing a race car cart came up beside me. The tortilla lady knew her son by name. So did the deli lady. They exchanged pleasantries while her son sat patiently in his cart, eating grapes out of a baggie. And this mother had her hair curled and sprayed, and was just the picture of patience and sunshine and daisies.

John chose this moment to stand up in the cart. I wish I could say that it was the first and last time. But I can't.

I asked him to sit down, and he did, and on we went. But he had tested the waters, and figured out that he owned that cart. For the next 15 or so aisles, he contorted his body into every possible position imaginable. He got himself wedged down beneath the steering wheels. He tried to climb out of the seat and into the place where my purse was. He tried to climb over the steering wheel and into the part where the food was.

As I moved through the store, cursing this cart -- possibly the worst engineering design ever, by the way, since you can only steer it if you use your pinkie fingers on the very outside edges of the handlebar -- I thought of the last time I was in this store. When John managed to get his arm stuck through the bars of the cart, and I had to bust open a jar of mayo right there in the aisle to grease him up and free him. And I wondered why I ever came back. Just then, the perfect deli woman strolled by. They were singing The Wheels on the Bus together.

Mercifully, we made it to the checkout without bloodshed. But not without running into the man handing out balloons -- who helpfully showed John the lollipop on the end -- and Buddy Bucks. Because this is exactly the type of behavior I want to reward with candy. And then the bag girl asked me why John looked so sad. La la la, happy place happy place happy place.

We paid, we left, we lost the balloon. We pushed the cart uphill in the wind to get to the car, and unloaded all the groceries. John was asleep before we made it out of the parking lot. And I was too tired to even wait in the gelatto line. Now that's when you know it's bad.

We're staying home today.