My Son, The Thief

Until recently, I tried to avoid taking Snuggles to the store.  But Snuggles is big enough now that he loves riding in the cart... The busier the store, the more he enjoys it because busy spells lots of activity to observe and categorize in his little file cabinet brain.

After delaying the Wally World trip until the situation was desperate, I had to shop for baby essentials that we seem to run out of everyday, namely diapers, wipes, baby food, and now formula.  [Did I mention the little snot stopped nursing cold turkey, and he refuses to drink any formula except the expensive stuff?!  I'm a little bitter.]

So Snuggles (happily) and I (begrudgingly) went to the Big W while Guitarman taught a college class on children's ministries.  As soon as I piled his pudgy little bum into the shopping cart, Snuggles got really excited.  He bopped to an inaudible beat as we walked into the store...

and were met with utter chaos.

Carts teetered with groceries, lining the aisles 3-wide like the Daytona 500.  Small children darted out in front of overloaded carts.  Busy WalMart cronies unloaded gargantuan boxes of product onto endless rows of shelves.

Snuggles and I weaved around people, and squeezed our way into the baby food aisle.  I searched through rows of jars to locate the food I knew Snuggles wouldn't spit out: bananas (check), apples and oats (check), green beans (check), sweet potatoes (check).  I turned to load jars of pears and prunes into our cart just in time to see Snuggles had reached over as far as the child restraint belt would allow him, and had stolen what appeared to be a small bag of beef jerky from the cart beside us.  Fascinated, Snuggles turned the plastic bag around his hands... The man didn't seem to notice Snuggles had pilfered his jerky.  Dressed in dirty work clothes, the man was busy barking at someone on the other end of his cell phone, "I'm here at the formula section, but I don't see any blue cans!"  I grabbed the stolen beef jerky from Snuggles' sticky fingers and quietly returned it to its rightful owner.  Snuggles hollered at me for taking his stash.  Before Snuggles could blow my cover, I zipped the cart around Flustered Dad to the safety of the diaper aisle.

[I hope Snuggles actually stole the jerky from Flustered Dad, not someone else.  Otherwise poor Flustered Dad probably questioned his sanity when he reached the checkout lane with random beef jerky in his cart, and someone with a taste for shriveled beef byproducts missed their salty treat.]

Snuggles, the thief.  Guilty as charged.

Speaking of the checkout lanes, someone please explain to me why WalMart refuses to open more than 4 checkout lanes at a time!  No matter how long the lines are, nevermind the screaming children waging mini-mutinies around their mothers' ankles.  Forget the sickly-looking senior citizens leaning on their canes, strength waning as they wait in a line 5-carts deep.  Despite the sea of tired customers toting cartons of melting ice cream, WalMart refuses to open more lanes.  It's ridiculous.

Thankfully, we managed to leave WalMart without Snuggles committing additional felonies.  A short time later, I changed him into his footed pj's, and I wished my little jailbird "good night".