My Mom ROCKS!

Penrod screeches to a halt in the freezer section and throws a sixty-four count box of chicken taquitos into the cart. He blasts off again, sparks flying. I scramble to keep up, but the playing field is not level because I am wearing heels. Just as I draw even, he stops again, so I overshoot. He deftly forks down a gigantic bag of pretzels and then tenderly ladles it into the top seat as though it were a fragile, six-pound baby…which is actually not so far off because it is, in fact, fragile and does, in fact, weigh  “6 lbs.“…and as I return to my purse the reading glasses I needed to see that small print I belatedly remember why I usually avoid taking large male adolescents with me to Bossco.

I thought it would be okay if I fed him before we left, but no–Old Mother was clearly paddling down that river in Egypt. The truth was that I simply did NOT want to brave this store on my own on the weekend, when they need to wire in temporary traffic lights at major intersections. Folks: those carts are gynormous! Many customers of more dainty size than Mr. Long & Lanky (who has just made a sharp right into the cereal section) simply cannot see over the dashboard, with or without a six-pound pretzel bag or a toddler obstructing the view. They should also be equipped with side mirrors and horns (the carts, I mean, not the toddlers). Come to think of it, there should be a standby ambulance in the parking lot, and as long as we’re at it, can we add a couple of EMT’s? They could sit at a booth up near the customer service desk, like between the exterior siding guy and the lady pitching water filtration systems, with their medical supplies conveniently strapped to their backs, and play gin rummy while they await the call. Kinda like nurses in the maternity ward.

This would definitely have come in handy after the little accident I witnessed as Speed Racer navigated his way to the cash registers at the end of above-mentioned visit….and retrospectively, I have to wonder why this kind of thing doesn’t happen more often at Bossco, where  the merchandise tends to be either on the large size in and of itself, or, perhaps, in relatively normal sizes, but shrink-wrapped together in multiples such that the total girth approximates the trunk of a sequoia.

We were headed briskly back up the main drag when Penrod had to brake behind a lollygagging group I immediately identified by accent as an Irish family doing a tour of duty at Hike (pronounced  “crikey”). Freshly arrived too, judging by their dumbstruck expressions as they surveyed this shrine to the concept of stockpiling. Just so you know, this particular Bossco, by virtue of its Silicon Forest location (sandwiched between the campuses of Oregon’s two, count-em two, Fortune 500 companies, GrahamBell and Hike) inadvertently serves as the premier showcase for all that American materialism has to offer to a large percentage of our nation’s H-1B visa holders.

I  watched it all happen like a movie in slow motion. The very tall Irish paterfamilias lifted a 2 x 3 foot box of dog chews off the top of an end-cap display and swiveled around just in time to clock a petite grandma trundling behind her family. I mean the poor guy could not possibly have seen her. So she lay there on the floor, more dazed than anything else, her sari  draped elegantly about her diminutive form, as the horrified dad knelt down and cradled her head. Her software engineer daughter, more appropriately clad for the excursion in jeans and hiking boots, raced to the nearest free sample booth for some power bar bites, while her two grandkids plied her with the tinted, quart-size water bottles that all American children seem to have velcroed to their palms these days as though we all lived in the middle of the Mojave Desert. The two Irish kids rose to the occasion and neatly maneuvered the carts to the side lest they be swept downstream in the traffic neatly and swiftly eddying around grandma. Clearly, in this arena at least, the time and tide of shopping wait for no man.

The store manager got the news via walkie-talkie, and raced to the scene via the electronics department, scooping up several  Samsung Galaxy S5’s which he clutched to his chest as he hurdled carts to arrive at his goal, where he earnestly pressed the phones into the hands of all the children involved, thereby averting an international crisis, or at least a tizzy at the GrahamBell water coolers the next day. For his quick thinking I feel he should get special recognition by Governor Kitzhaber as an honorary Goodwill Ambassador. It really can be like the Wild West out here sometimes, and we certainly don’t want folks to go back home with a bad taste in their mouths just because we failed to do a little something to help them acclimate.

Show over, Penrod and I made it out of the store in one piece and he did a yeoman’s job packing our purchases in the back of the car, which requires as much technique as packing your car for summer vacation. He chauffeured us home while I massaged my ankles, but once he pulled into the garage I took the keys and dismissed him (after calling upon him to wrestle the slab of toilet paper rolls as large as a shower-stall door into the basement). Because unpacking is a completely different matter. I am keenly aware of Bossco’s major pitfall, a little ditty entitled “The More You Buy The More They’ll Eat,” so to maximize the benefit I adhere strictly to the Rules of Defensive Nutrition, subcategory Bulk-Buy Storage Procedure, and that is, to wit: HIDE THE FOOD. For example, if you buy a jumbo box of Goldfish, remove one of the three vacuum-sealed bags and put it in the pantry; put the other two in your handkerchief drawer. If you buy a jumbo box of Oreos, place two cylinders in the pantry; put the other eight in the library cabinet where the photo albums are kept. If you buy a box of Ghirardelli Brownie Mix, put one bag in the pantry, put the other five in that wrinkled grocery bag in the basement where you keep extra school supplies. And so on and so forth. (Of course, I am making up these locations, because my children avidly police my blog to make sure I am not quoting them incorrectly and/or am not stealing their best lines, and I am not stupid enough to give away my REAL hiding places).

Between you and me, I’m more focused on a well-stocked mind than a well-stocked pantry. But  with kids around you gotta bend a little! That’s where the bulk-buying comes in and, yeah, I’ll play the game at Bossco, mostly because I couldn’t keep up otherwise. In general, children are ravenous, enthusiastic, and absolutely nothing will ruin their appetites.  And the hunger games can get pretty intense at my house. I never know when someone is going to come into the kitchen at 9:30 p.m., grip my arm with the wild-eyed stare that indicates spontaneous combustion is imminent and cry: “This trigonometry homework is killing me and I….NEED…CHOCOLATE!!“