The Circus

Saturday I took my kids to Target. I had no idea that the circus had pitched the big top over check out lane 8 and that we were taking center stage of the three ring act.

I ran into my sister, Michelle, at the Pharmacy and as we were walking to the front of the store Ava alerts me to the fact that she, "gotta go potty". Which with Ava could be anything from the truth or a fib to get out of the store. So I tell her hold on one minute until we pay. Mind you neither of my kids have had a nap and it is about 5:00 in the evening, so it was not a good Target trip to begin with. When we get up to the check out lane I start loading the food onto the conveyor belt and Ava grabs the cart -which was the bigger than life double seater that Grace demands every time we go to Target, so that she can lounge over the two seats like Liz Taylor in Cleopatra- and starts to steer recklessly toward the water globe display. I grab Ava and tell her the forbidden word "NO". She instantly starts crying and screaming "I GONNA PEE MY PANTS." To which I respond, "No Ava, you did pee your pants-on me". I removed my pee drenched jacket and alert the 16 year old checker that my daughter had made a pee puddle in the aisle. He grabs the telephone and quickly (read completely panicked that he was going to end up with some paper towels and a mop) calls for "Back up-FAST". I was surprised that he was able to function so smoothly as I have now noticed I am wearing a see-through white shirt and being covered in pee with no makeup on, I am extremely FOXY. Ava is crying so I take off her pants and wrap them in my jacket o'pee. This only makes her cry louder because now everyone can "see her bum". At this point I turn to my sister and tell her that if she wants to pretend she doesn't know us, I would totally understand. She calmy responds that we look identical and people probably know that we are together and between laughs asks if she can help. By now the Target HazMat team has shown up and the store manager is directing us to Lane 7. I reload my cart and attempt to steer over. For the second time I unload my cart. I pause here to mention something I omitted earlier. My kids had a doughnut when we first arrived and you can't have a doughnut without milk. So they each had an individual strawberry milk with their doughnuts. The poor unsuspecting checker scans one milk and not noticing the missing lid, covers himself in strawberry millk/doughnut backwash. Calmly he asks, "Does this like have a lid?" and I realize why yes it did, and I have to inform him that it is in the pile of pee and sanation cleanser on the next aisle. I am sure that as he bites his tongue he quite certainly says a little prayer that the prescription he is scanning is for birth control.