The Oil Change

I don't know exactly what my children say to each other when they wake up in the morning, but thanks to a FB share from my friend Dottie, I'm pretty sure it goes something like this:
"Let's see if we can drive mom completely bat shit crazy today, k?" "Yeah, because we got so close yesterday!" My kids are determined if nothing else. They have a goal in mind, and by golly they are going for it!
I generally try to consolidate errands. I do this with the completely sinister plan of hiring a babysitter while I do them so that I don't have to put short people in and out of the car so many times. A lot of times, I swear it takes me longer to load and unload them than it does to accomplish the actual errand. Well either that or the errand takes me FIVE TIMES longer than it should because I'm having to stop and answer "Can we have..." every thirty seconds. People who design end caps and checkout lines, I'm onto you. And I don't like the way you play dirty pool. Not one bit.
One day last week, I allowed my sense of financial responsibility to override my common sense. I was already in Tupelo and had the baby with me. I needed an oil change, so I figured it would cost me less to go ahead and stop rather than taking the baby all the way home and driving back. Getting the babysitter off the clock quicker always makes my husband smile.
So off we went to the ten minute oil change place. Every time I've ever been inside that place in the last six years, there's been a magnetic table and a few toys for kids. Excellent, I thought. The baby can play and I'll read my book. Cool! I pulled up, unloaded my baby, my book, my purse, and the diaper bag that usually outweighs the kid. We headed inside to find that, naturally, the table and toys had been removed. Just like that my plan dissolved into thin air.
The tiny room was full of people, and of course my oil change ended up taking closer to thirty minutes than ten. I had amused my little girl with pretty much everything I had, including my cell phone. Anyone who's ever been in a tiny room full of people with a toddler who no longer wishes to be there knows what a picnic that is. I was getting desperate, so I broke out the snacks.
She crunched quietly for awhile, then asked for her favorite food in the world, fruit snacks. These little guys were the first food item that she gave a name and asked for. She calls them "a nanas,"  although none of us are really sure why. She was freaking out in front of the pantry one day repeating the word "a nana" so I just held things up until she smiled and jumped up and down when I got to the fruit snacks. They really are a food group as far as she's concerned. When she outgrew her bedtime bottle with Daddy, he substituted fruit snacks and she still eats them every night.     
A pack of fruit snacks generally keeps her quiet for at least 5-10 minutes. I opened them for her and sat back. Yes, a break! I was enjoying my moment of peace when I saw her drop one on the floor. NO! I swooped down on her like a hawk on a baby rabbit, but it was too late. With a grin, she popped that treat in her mouth and swallowed it whole. The guy sitting across from me had been watching all this happen with great amusement, and suddenly he couldn't contain his giggles anymore. I thought he was going to fall out of his chair. I was standing there thinking, "Really dude, I've got three kids. This isn't that funny" when I realized what I had done. In her haste to cram the contraband treat in her mouth, the baby had spilled the remaining treats in her bag on the floor. As I stepped back to return to my seat, I had managed to step on one...and weld my shoe to the floor. It made an awesome sucking sound and stretched at least six inches when I picked my foot up. I took out a baby wipe to clean my shoe and the floor with as much dignity as I could muster. Mr. Giggle Box was still LOLing from across the room. I opened my mouth to say, "I'm glad we could provide so much entertainment for you during your oil change. Tips gladly accepted," but then I saw my child headed for the public restroom to play with the toilet water. Yep, throw in a kid and even life's most mundane tasks become a challenge. Or another rung on the ladder to the nervous hospital. Whichever.