Death of shopping, at least the fun kind.

I love shopping. All kinds of shopping. I love sale shopping, virtual shopping, garage sale shopping, and fancy store shopping. I especially love scanning the racks, trying on things I can't afford, playing with makeup at the counters, and trying on endless pairs of shoes. Having my two lovely daughters, however, ruined this favorite pastime, at least for the time being.
On the rare occasions that I have attempted to bring one or both of my daughters shopping with me, I have left either so frustrated that I wanted to scream, exhausted from chasing their little asses around, or just plain close to tears out of depression over the fact that I can no longer browse for clothes, books, shoes, purses or whatever it happened to be that I was looking for, or didn't know that I needed.
Oh sure, they LOVE the grocery store, which happens to be the one exception to my list of shopping loves. Although they love shopping for food, it's still usually not so fun for the adult chaperone. One problem is that they want to help.
Now, let me begin by saying that I am not anti-old person, but let's be clear about the fact that the elderly are the archenemy to the mommy-on-the-go. Nowhere is this more evident than at the grocery store. There are battles over produce, the deli line, and the right of way. Sure that cute little old lady may seem friendly, but she will battle you to the end over the best ears of corn on the cob and will cut ahead of you in line as soon as you turn your back to grab the latest issue of People, but I digress.
The point I wanted to make is that old people like little kids, when they're sitting quietly in the front of the cart, which they almost never are. The elderly especially love the giant, double dog daddy, four alarm shit-fit, which usually happens at the front of the store, where the greatest number of shoppers can watch and enjoy.
Then there's the shopping cart. I've tried all kinds of carts and all kinds of ways to use them: ride in front, ride in back, stand on back ledge, the kind with the double giant seat section, and my favorite the race car...favorite because it has the least amount of room for my crap, is completely awkward to control, and looks ridiculous. The best part is that the girls ride in it for about 17 minutes, then I'm forced to continue to push this jalopy while chasing the girls around the store anyway.
On our last visit to Target (yes, I've settled to do most of my shopping there), I thought they might not allow us to return. In the span of 3 minutes, one daughter chose a beautiful pink ceramic piggy bank, which fell to the floor the moment she picked it up and smashed loudly into a million pieces while my other daughter attacked the Johnson & Johnson display and the whole shelf of baby lotion came tumbling down. Two employees came running to see what the crash was and I contemplated pretending not to know my daughters for a second or two, but alas took responsibility. They were very nice about it. Turns out at Target, you don't HAVE to buy it if you broke it ;)
Then there's the "hiding" or as I like to call it "giving mommy a minute". I can clearly see the pink bedazzled shoes under the rounder and like to pretend that I'm shopping at Nordstrom, while scanning the clearance rack in the children's section, and pretending to play hide and seek.
The fitting room is fun, too. I love that the exact moment I've stripped down to just my underpants is the moment when one child sneaks out under the door and proceeds to attempt to crawl under my neighbor's door, who happens to be a miserable, child-hating 90 year old lady.
Good times.