Groceries and bribery

I bought John a doughnut at Meijer today. He often gets one when he shops with me. Yes, I know, shameless bribery. But it does make him more eager to come to the store, and sometimes it is necessary to bring him.

Today was especially tricky. I needed to shop during the 90-minute fencing class that James is taking this week. Margaret was at a friend's house, so that left me the two little ones for a whirlwind grocery run. I mapped out the nearest Meijer to the fencing gym - 11 minutes away, according to Google Maps. For a variety of reasons, we arrived at fencing 5 minutes late. That left me precisely 63 minutes to park, shop, check out, load the car. Easy, you say? Perhaps for some. But I figure a Meijer round-trip (door-to-door) is typically 2 hours on my own, and 2.5-3 hours with "helpers." Fortunately, my list today was very short.

I needed a good bribe today, and I couldn't risk the bribe slowing us down, so I had to withhold it until the end. John was told that he would only get the doughnut if he could help me get through the store quickly enough. He did an excellent job. When I was picking up baby food pouches for my upcoming trip, John enthusiastically scooped up an armful and tossed it in the cart. Don't know what flavors we got, but John made sure we'll have enough!

So, I let him choose a doughnut as the last thing into the cart. He chose a suitably disgusting-looking one, with a huge glob of brown chocolate frosting and a gummy worm emerging from the top. Much of the chocolate frosting ended up on the toe of his shoe in a big glop, but hey, that's what crocs were made for!

We did arrive 5 minutes late to get James, but I will blame that on the emergency bathroom stop at Meijer. While I suppose I just should have planned for that, I had sent John just before we left home to the bathroom, so I was counting on not having to do that again.

Still, I didn't begrudge John the doughnut. Not only did he try his best to get us through quickly, but as we were loading the car (and he was licking the final crumbs from his fingers) he exclaimed, "Mom, I love doughnuts. And I love you even more than a doughnut. [Long pause.] I even love you more than TWO doughnuts!"