Mr. Monster

My favorite grocery store has good deals, a great cheese selection and a Starbucks to greet me at its entrance. I have mastered the art of grocery shopping while drinking coffee. Instead of trying to push and steer a grocery cart one-handed, I find pulling from the basket end is much easier. This is actually the case with or without a beverage. Plus, my view isn't obstructed by a car seat or a three year old trying to "surf" in the cart.

Today, as I was dragging the cart down the pasta isle with coffee in hand, Claudia started crying. Since she was behind me I had no idea why.
When asked, she screamed, "A MONSTER!"
Where?
"Right THERE! It's a MONSTER!" I turned to look in the direction she was pointing. There stood a man about 6'8" with long hair and dark sun glasses (think Jeff Bridges in "The Big Lebowski"). He was completely harmless, but this is a girl who gets freaked out by Sesame Street's Abby Cadabby. I apologized and sped away.

As I was standing at the self-service check out, waiting for the attendant to, once again, push her magic button, guess who got in line directly behind us?

Claudia started in again. I began scanning groceries at the speed of light. Of course, in doing so, I knocked my coffee over. I asked the attendant for some paper towel to clean up the mess. She looked down and gasped, "What IS that?" as if one of my children had just had a loose stool crap-o-rama or vomited brown water all over her floor. I grabbed the paper towel, cleaned up the "bile", swiped my credit card and got the hell out of there.

Needless to say, Mr. Monster got a kick out of the whole episode.