McD's and the Fancy Store

McDonald's on Sunday. It's a strange place. Even more than Wal-mart the McD's is where you can find anyone at anytime. Just in the play area I saw:

A Hippie boy with uncombed long brown hair
2 kids in their pajamas
About half a dozen girls in Sunday dresses looking very confused. Poor things were like "We're allowed to play, but these are our good dresses and if we play in them we get in trouble, but church is over now and...."*fizz* *pop* *head splodey*
Kids still in their shoes, parents yelling "Don't take your shoes off! Do you want to get a disease?!"
Parents playing Name That Scream "Hey is that scream your kid?" "Nah, my kid's more of a whiner."
Parents trying to herd their kids
Parents herding other people's kids
Parents herding kids that looked similar to their own kids
Parents in their Sunday best
Weekend dads all jealous that they can't fit on the equipment anymore
Yelling moms
Gossiping moms
Blase grandparents wondering why they have to go through this shit at their age
Fashionable moms
One mom wearing what I'm pretty sure was a bath towel not long ago
And that one creepy old guy that eats in the play area even though it's pretty obvious he doesn't have a kid. It's not that he's a predator, he just likes the bigger tables and will hog a whole one, glaring at the kids and bitching about the noise.

My kid could have cared less about any of it, of course. He ran in there and headed straight for the stairs, shoes still on, smacking his head on something because he wasn't paying attention. Here I am, arms full of food and he's trying to get his shoes off so violently, he makes the knots worse. Some lady there with her little ones helped him, much to my relief, and then he was outta there. When I saw him stuck way up high, crying, she just grabbed some kid and said "Tell (my kid) his mom needs him, now." Lo and behold, here he comes, crying that he hit his head. One hug and a forced drink later, he's back up high like the little monkey he is. All is well for a little bit, he's happily crawling around, barking at the other kids and howling, then...Name That Scream! Yup, it's mine. He's smacked his face now. Right-o one healing kiss and we're off again, except...

"Hon, where's your socks?"
*shrug*
"No, really, where are they?"
*points in the vague direction of "up"*
"Go get them and put them back on."
"Wanna go play!"
*Motherly sigh* "Just get your socks."

Other Lady recruits every kid she can corral for a minute to look for the erstwhile socks. Nothing doing. Ah well, maybe he'll learn not to take his socks off next time. A Happy Meal and a pair of socks almost too small for him is a small price to pay, I guess. So now it's time to go. It is beyond lunchtime and Boogernose needs to eat. There is no way he's going to sit and eat in the restaurant so I get him ready to go, once I catch him, that is. Once I used his middle name some other kid actually herded him back down, telling him there was no fighting the mama on this. I thanked her and when I went to put Kidlet's shoes on, he threw a fit. He wanted his socks! Let him go get his socks! Well, for one last play, here's Helpful Other Lady climbing in the structure to look for these socks. They were awesome socks and all, by my god! I had visions of the Fire Department being called to cut this poor woman out of the plastic jungle! After she returned (thank goodness) there were no socks to be found. Oh well, perhaps the Sock Mice decided they were cool enough to steal a whole pair at once, instead of picking one at random from the dryer. I put a loudly protesting and snot covered tot in the car and he chowed down on his food, which, amazingly, seemed to help calm him down. We drove for a while so he could eat and he kept insisting we had to go to Safeway. Here is the actual conversation:

"Safeway? The grocery store?"
"Yes. Safeway."
"Why Safeway?"
"Because I'm a big kid" (his go-to answer to everything)
"Not what I meant, babe. I mean, what do we need from the grocery store?"
"Potatoes and *mumble*"
"What?"
"Potatoes and w-*mumble*"
I've pulled over at this point so I can literally read his lips. "Potatoes and what?"
"Wolves"
"We have to go to Safeway to get potatoes and...wolves."
"No! That's silly! You can't do that in one trip! Get the wolves first, THEN the potatoes!"
"Wow. So we have to go to Safeway, get wolves, take them home, go BACK to Safeway and buy potatoes?"
"Yeah!"
"O-kay. You know what? You're weird. And that's okay!"

Well, I didn't want to go to Safeway, but I suppose a grocery store is always an option, a quick call home to get suggestions and off we go up into the hills to the fancy store. That takes food stamps. What the hell. My reason for going to that store wasn't just because it has a bevy of fine products but because they give free big ass cookies to the kids. Helloooo dessert for free! I was good. Somehow I made it out of there with only a pound of bacon, 3 hot dogs, a huge red apple, a huge zucchini, some baby veggies to steam, a scone, and an apple fritter.

Kiddo was regaling me with all kinds of stories, stories about the wolves in the store, ("Just tell them to follow us, hon." "Okay! Come on, wolves, come on.") stories about him turning green, stories about his stuffed puppy. He was telling a lady from the deli all about it and she was so enraptured she got him a fresh sliced piece of cheese. Score! This being a snooty store she figured Kiddo would like some fancy cheese. Nope! Good ol' American does just fine! While he's chomping on that, I'm raiding the fancy meats out for sample. Serrano ham? Spanish dry-aged chorizo? Capicola? Extremely aged salami? Don't mind if I do! The Serrano and Spanish chorizo were my definite faves, even if the sample lady was being a snob about it. She kept peppering me with total food snob questions like she's a damn sommelier of salami. Whatever. The ham and chorizo together cost over $50 per pound, so...yeah. Free samples! We left the store (after my son got a high five from the bagger) with our groceries, free salami, free cheese, free big cookie, and 4 wolves which I am happy to say settled right down in the car and didn't cause a lick of trouble all the way home.