Errand Nightmares

*Facebook 6/28/11 - Somebody just shushed my kids. Lady, YOU try being one of six kids in line at the post office. Grrrr.

I love my children. I want to spend as much time as possible with them. I want to cherish every moment of their growing-up years. I want to lovingly tend to their every need at any time of the day.

But I don’t want to take them on errands. Or out anywhere, really.

It all comes down to the numbers:

Example 1 - Grocery Shopping:

-Time needed to do weekly grocery shopping alone: 1 hour.

-Time needed to do weekly grocery shopping with six kids: 2.5 hours, plus 30 minutes for the trip back to get the things I forgot because they were filling my brain with nonsensical noise.

-Total Amount spent when doing grocery shopping alone: $250

-Total Amount spent when doing grocery shopping with 6 kids: $350 ($50 for things they need that I didn’t think of, $25 for items they hide in the cart, and $25 extra added to the liquor budget because I’m going insane by the time I hit that aisle.)

-Number of times hearing the words, “But Mo-Om, I waaaant it!” when shopping with 6 kids: 198,874,209,782

-Number of times hearing those words when shopping alone: 0 (unless it is from someone else’s kid, in which case I can just switch aisles)

-Probability that the designer of the “impulse aisle” can actually see into my mind and has created said aisle using exact specifications of my worst nightmare: 75%

Example 2: Going to the Movies

-Cost of going to the movies without children: $60 (including the babysitter)

-Cost of going to the movies with children: $160 (not including the pina colada I will need afterward)

-Number of spilled beverages when going to the movies without children: 0

-Number of spilled beverages when going to the movies with children: 8, unless the people in front of us aren’t watching closely enough, then 10

-Number of movie minutes lost to go to the bathroom when going to the movies alone: 0

-Number of movie minutes lost to go to the bathroom when going to the movies with 6 kids: 97

Example 3: The Mall

-Number of minutes in Bath and Body Works when shopping alone: as many as I want

-Number of minutes in Bath and Body Works when shopping with 6 kids: about 2 before they break something. (sidebar: Number of dollars spent on broken Bath and Body Works items while shopping with kids: $39)

-Number of minutes in Claire’s when shopping with 6 kids: 9 million

-Number of minutes in Claire’s when shopping alone: 0!

-Number of quarters in arcade games when shopping with 6 kids: 24

-Number of quarters in arcade games when shopping alone: 0

(-Number of quarters in arcade games when shopping with Bill: 10)

Example 4: Going Out to Dinner

- Percentage chance that we will end up in a restaurant where someone is wearing a tie when we go out to dinner alone: 30%

- Percentage chance that we will end up in a restaurant where someone is wearing a tie when we go out to dinner with 6 kids: 0%

-Percentage chance that, when going out to dinner with 6 kids, we will end up in a restaurant where someone is wearing Levi’s dinner: 65%

Example 5: The Bank Drive Through

-Number of “ooh cool”s when the bank drive-through sucks up the container when I am alone in the car: 0

-Number of “ooh cool”s when the bank drive thru sucks up the container when all 6 kids are the car: 7 (Okay, I admit it. Sometimes when they are around everything seems more exciting.)

-Percentage chance that when all 6 kids are in the car I will get the math right: 3%

-Percentage chance that I will get all the math right even if they’re not in the car: 4% (Who are we kidding?)

-Number of lollipop wrappers on the floor of my car when I get home after taking all 6 kids through the bank drive-through: 6

-Number of lollipop wrappers on the floor of my car when I get home after going to the bank drive-through alone: 0

-Percentage chance that my floor is so covered with other things they’ve left behind I wouldn’t notice anyway: 100%

Okay fine, that one is a wash. They can still come with me to the bank.

Summary

-Average number of errands I run each day: 4

-Probability that at least one errand each day will be for milk: 100%

-Number of times per week I wake up in the middle of the night from errand-related nightmares: 3

-Likelihood that Bill will buy me one of those tiny little electric cars so that it is just impossible for me to take anyone with me when I go on errands: 0%.

-Likelihood that Bill will allow me to hire a live-in nanny to stay with the children while I run errands: 0%

-Likelihood that I will stop asking Bill for both of the above: 0%.

*Facebook 5/18/11 - Going to the grocery store for the 93rd time this week since no one in my house can get it together to tell me we're RUNNING OUT of something - only MOM! IT'S ALL GONE AND I NEED IT NOW! I may drive past the store and go straight to Vegas.

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I started following your blog at the request of Cheryl and i LOVE it and I LOVE your grocery list/menu, you must tell me where you picked that up at!!!!

Posted by: Misty | 07/07/2011 at 11:52 AM

Love the food chart of what's for dinner each week! I Sooo need to do that again!
A new follower,
Jen
http://richfaithrising.blogspot.com/
...because Life IS a Poem!

Posted by: Jen | 06/01/2011 at 11:23 AM