{no, I did not take this picture. I just thought it was neat}Last night as I was cleaning things up and winding down in preparation for bed, I noticed that one of the socks I was wearing had something sticky on it. I kept sticking to the floor in various places. I took the sock off and inspected it and saw nothing that would indicate there was anything sticky. I checked the floor and saw nothing as well. Our kitchen floor is still torn up in certain places, so my feeble mind chalked it up to the sock catching on the rough spots. I took the socks off, put them in the hamper and went to bed.
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Yesterday we had to go register the van and do a title transfer and licensing as well. I gathered all the paperwork I needed and loaded the kids up. After finding the building and taking a number in the waiting area, I thought we were in for the dreaded government building wait. Surprisingly though, the whole process took only about 15 minutes (wait and all) and we were happily on our way. I decided to stop at the nearest HEB (grocery) to pick up a few much needed items.
[why is it that even when I go in with a list of only a few things, I still end up spending 50-100 dollars?]
The HEB was not one that I normally shop at because it is very old and small and dingy. Directly across from a WalMart, it is usually pretty crowded as well. I don't like the parking, the smaller shopping carts or the arrangement of the isles, so I only go to it when absolutely necessary. Or in this case when going to one of the other locations was ridiculously out of my way.
So we went, and I squeezed my poor Kiddo in the basket behind Port and hoped the few items I needed would fit in there with him.
As usual, the people were cranky, the shelves were a mess and they were out of a couple of things that I needed. We got into the shortest check out line I could find and I was pleased when the cashier started playing peekaboo with Port while she was checking out the lady in front of me. When we got up to the front of the line, she gave Kiddo a Buddy Buck (it's a little fake dollar that the kids can use to play one of those annoying grabber games) and then pulled out her cash drawer. Her shift was over. The kid that replaced her was nice too (unusual for this location) so I didn't mind; though Kiddo was sad that she left. Generally if someone engages him in conversation he is in love with them. When we were almost done, she suddenly appeared with two red balloons for the kids. It was very sweet.
[of course, Kiddo instantly remembered what happened the last time he had a red balloon from HEB]
When you get a balloon at HEB, it is weighted at the bottom of the string with a sucker. When we got home, I let Kiddo eat his sucker and I popped the balloon it was attached to and threw it in the trash. Kiddo got upset that I tossed the balloon, so I told him he could play with Port's balloon instead. He proceeded throughout the evening to use the balloon as a punching bag; beating it all over the living and dining room of the house.
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This morning I was sitting on the floor with Port and in front of me I noticed a little purple shard of something glistening in the morning sunlight. Several inches from that, another, bigger shard glistened and sparkled as well. I moved closer to inspect these foreign objects, and the aroma of grape sugar teased my nose. I touched one of them, finding it stuck to my still somewhat new wood floor. I pried it up with my fingernail and figured out what it was.
HEB grape sucker.
The sucker I gave Kiddo the day before was green. I quickly turned to inspect the anchor still holding the now semi deflated balloon that Kiddo punched around yesterday and my heart sank when I saw it. The purple sucker that once held weight in it's plastic bag was nothing more than a stick and a few chunks of hardened sugar. I lowered my gaze and my head level with the floor and what laid before me were thousands of microscopic shards of shattered sucker.
Stuck.
All
Over
My
Floor
*sigh*
Parenting tip for today. Do not ever allow your child to bat around a balloon from the grocery store on a hard floor if the said balloon is attached to a cheap piece of candy.
Aren't you glad I'm here to help you learn from my mistakes?!
Until,
D ;)
2 comments:
I hate sticky socks or anything sticky on the floor. Drives me crazy.
Michael refuses Buddy Bucks now... they always offer and he always says, "No, thank you." He also refuses balloons, but they don't offer those at our HEB anymore anyway. He figured out that Buddy Buck game is pretty pointless and I never want to loiter around to wait for him to play it anyway... so we just had this huge drift of Buddy Bucks in the backseat of the car that I made him throw out. It's nice that the HEB partners pay attention to and engage kids, I just wish there was something more useful than balloons, suckers and Buddy Bucks.
At my HEB on Monday night, I was neither surprised nor disappointed that it was a miserable experience since it always is during afterwork hours... however, there was a lady shopping there with a tiny child who screamed and wailed non-stop for at least 30 minutes. I don't understand that... if my kid was wailing like that, there would be nothing that would stop me from FIXING whatever the problem was!
Oh boy. I should have warned you. I had the same thing happen, except that I had to pick up the bits stuck to carpet. Some of it had to use a scissor to cut the candy off the carpet. Sorry you had to deal with that.
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