The perfect shopping experience

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MATT LANE

November 5, 2009

By Mandy Carter The McAlester News-Capital Thu Nov 05, 2009, 06:18 AM CST

In case the suspense was killing you, we survived Halloween.

I had plans to take our annual rodeo clown trick-or-treating, but she opted to go with the pros. I’m a bench-warmer when it comes to the fun stuff, or first runner-up, maybe. In the event that the people who are good at it cannot fulfill their duties, I get to go. This year was not the year, though, so the kids loaded up with some friends, Zoey with her feed bucket and Zeke with his plan to supervise, and off they went.

I went grocery shopping. Who knew that was a brilliant plan? I guess everyone was trick-or-treating or watching the ballgame, because I got a parking space up front AND near a cart corral. You’d think it couldn’t get any better than that, but wait, there’s more.

I did not get the cart with the defective wheel and accompanying high-pitched squeak that generally has my name on it, and, I only saw one person I know, so I thought I’d get through pretty fast. That one person was as thrilled as I was that there was virtually no one else shopping, so she just did a drive-by cart ramming to make her presence known, grinned evilly and hustled on down the shampoo aisle. I was talking to my sister on the phone at the time.

“Dude, I just got rammed by a church lady.” I couldn’t believe it. “Hit and run.” She even bragged about it at church the next day.

I shook it off and continued my shopping adventure.

I was a shopping machine, knocking that list out in record time, until the phone rang again. Multi-tasking is still not a strong suit, so my progress came to a grinding halt as I tried to study my list and still carry on an intelligent conversation. I was unsuccessful, resulting in 47 trips back to aisles I’d already covered. Then there was the part where I called the person I was talking to the name of the product I was looking for. That’s embarrassing.

In the meantime, call-waiting kept beeping. Finally, I responded.

“Bring me food,” Mike said pitifully. Oh, I guess it has been two hours, better get busy. Still, it was a stress free conversation, because there was no one to glare at me because I was taking up space in the peanut butter aisle while I idly rambled about nothing. Nobody cared. How cool is that?

I’ve got to tell you, you’ve not enjoyed the ultimate shopping experience until you’ve shopped with a vampire, a werewolf, and Elvis, just before he left the building.

And then, to top it off, I did not have to wait to be checked out. Just pulled right up and started unloading right then and there. It was almost surreal.

The kids had a great time trick-or-treating, and when they got home, you’d have thought we fast-forwarded right into Christmas.

“Mom, you’re the best! You got strawberry syrup and pop tarts!”

Yes, we will eat like kings for another week.

All-in-all, it was a near-perfect Saturday, what with limited trauma over costumes and all.

Now I can start agonizing over Thanksgiving.

Mandy Carter is a staff writer for the McAlester News-Capital. Contact her at 421-2027.

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