I just had to go to Schnucks this morning because the babies didn’t have any juice boxes, and you know the babies need juice boxes.  Because juice boxes are necessities.  To babies who are 10 and 12.  Ok.  I didn’t have to go to the grocery store this morning, but I did want the kids to have some juice boxes to go with their lunches, and I wanted a banana.  I saw a recipe this morning for peanut butter banana oatmeal that sounded delightful, and I wanted to give it a try, with modifications, of course, like not using peanut butter.

So I went to Schnucks and remembered how I loathe grocery stores.  I’m so glad Chris does all of the grocery shopping.  And cooking.  If you’re wondering what I do to pull my weight, I’ll refer you to a conversation TB had with someone one day.  This person asked TB, “What do your parents do?”  TB replied, “My dad is an engineer.”  Having only received a partial answer, the person asked, “And what about your mom?”  TB said, “Mostly laundry and dishes.”

Having already accomplished some laundry and dishes on the day, I left for my adventure at Schnucks.  It took me a moment to find the bananas.  Why don’t they keep them with the pineapples?  That makes sense to me – to have all of the tropical fruits next to each other.  That’s one of the reasons I don’t like grocery shopping (or any in-store shopping for that matter) – stores are not organized in ways that make sense to me.  Sure, I can read the signs on the aisles detailing what items reside down that lane, but I find that almost everything I search for in stores is not listed on the signs, and then I have to determine which items listed on the signs are most like the items I want to purchase and pray for the best as I step down each aisle with trepidation.

Well, I located the bananas, seemingly hundreds of them, and to my dismay, they were all green – except three of them.  Really, I had never seen so many bananas in one place (then again, I don’t frequent grocery stores), and all of them were green.  What are the odds of that many green bananas in one place?  High maybe.  I don’t know.  And honestly, I don’t want to visit grocery stores often enough to find out.  Eventually I dug out the three not-entirely-green bananas and selected one.

At this point I wandered around the grocery store wielding my single banana, looking desperately for a sign that read “Juice,” because I never expected to find a sign that read “Juice Boxes.”  To my glee, however, I saw in bold lettering the term “Juice Boxes.”  Hurray!  Victory would be mine with only a little hassle.  I rejoiced until I found myself staring at a wall of juice boxes of every sort.

So many juice boxes.

It took me about three minutes to realize the aisle had not only juice boxes but also juice box water.  What?  I didn’t even know juice box water was a thing.  What in the world is juice box water?  Really?  Juice box water?  Interestingly enough, juice box water contains no juice.  It does, however, contain water, just like juice box juice.  Fascinating.

Eventually I stopped pondering the wonders of the wall o’ juice boxes and picked up the kind I most frequently see in our house.  Armed with a juice box carton on my hip and a lone banana in my hand, I headed for the checkout counter.

I breezed through checkout until I picked up my bag and noticed something very concerning.  My checker had put the juice box carton on top of my banana.  Chris often complains about the poor packing at grocery stores, and I witnessed it myself today.  Who would throw a carton of juice boxes on top of a banana?  So sad.

After my quick trip to the market, I arrived back home and put my items on the counter.  I opened up the juice box carton and put the juice pouches (I suppose I should have been saying juice pouches all this time, but it lacks a certain ring, and the aisle sign read “Juice Boxes,” and it wouldn’t steer me wrong.) in the refrigerator.  TB walked in, politely thanked me for purchasing juice boxes, then he usurped my banana.

“Is this banana for me?” TB inquired.

My external dialogue said, “You can have it.”  My internal monologue said, “Seriously?  You don’t even like bananas, and you think I went to the store to buy only one banana for it to be for you?  You couldn’t possibly have thought that.”

“Are you sure?  Did you want it?” TB asked as he picked up the banana and attempted to fit it inside of his lunch box.

I said, “You can have the banana, son.”  I thought, “If I weren’t sure, I wouldn’t have said you can have it.  And of course I want it; I bought it for my fabulous almond butter banana oatmeal extravaganza.”

Then TG walked in looking for a banana.  Had she and I been in the same room having a conversation, she never would have heard a thing I said, but since she was two rooms away, and no one was talking to her, she clearly heard the entire banana exchange.

I should have bought all three bananas.

I know TG likes bananas.  I just wasn’t thinking when I got to the store.  In my defense, grocery stores overwhelm me, and I have difficulty thinking straight and staying on-task while I’m in them.  Well, the banana fail wasn’t my finest mom moment, but it could have been a lot worse.  I could have used two “be” verbs in the same sentence and a whole ton of them in previous sentences.  And I could have misused the word ton, mistaking it for an indication of quantity rather than a unit of weight.  So I didn’t feel too bad.

After I dropped off the kids I went back to Schnucks; I still wanted to make my almond butter banana oatmeal extravaganza.  Because of my experience earlier in the morning, I went directly to the banana section and the two not-entirely-green bananas.  I picked up one, marched myself to the same checker I had earlier, and purchased my banana.  She didn’t offer me a bag, which was just fine by me.

Why didn’t I buy both bananas?  I had to leave something for Chris to do; he loves grocery shopping, after all.