The boys and I went grocery shopping at the commissary today. (We tried to go yesterday, but we forgot that they recently changed the schedule so that the day they are closed is Monday instead of Sunday. The Japanese employees – meaning, almost all of them – are ticked off about it, too. If I understand correctly, they only take one day for weekends, and Sunday is it. I wasn’t too pleased to waste a trip to base, myself.) I was pleasantly surprised to see that they had more fruit than usual! We get strange gaps in stock and supply, and something they carry one day may never show up again. Today, though, they had strawberries (I haven’t seen those for a month or two) and green grapes for a reasonable price (last time they had grapes they were $4 a pound) and I was quick to snatch some up.
Unfortunately, we did not get out of the store without incident.
You know those little buttons under the counter by the cash register, that the cashier can push to call the police if they’re being robbed? Yeah, it’s a big red button about two and a half feet up from the floor – quite eye-catching if you’re three feet tall. We were checking out and no one was standing in the lane next to us, so Max wandered two steps away and pushed the bright red button.
The cashier said, “Oh, no, don’t push that -” (as he pushes the button) “…Police come now.”
We had to stand and wait about ten or fifteen minutes for the SP to show up to take the report. Wow, sure glad there wasn’t actually a gunman. Although, they may have told him that it was a false alarm, and if they did he surely took his time. He seemed annoyed, and pulled aside the store manager to discuss something that I’m not surprised to learn is a recurring problem.
SP: “Look, you’ve got to do something about this. This is the second time -”
Japanese Store Manager (politely interrupting): “Third time.”
SP: “Okay, the third time that this has happened. The kids just walk in there and push the button, you need to put something across there to cover it when no one’s using it, to keep people from going in there.”
Sounds like a plan. He came over and talked to me, took Max’s name, birth date, and social security number (baby’s got a rap sheet now!); then all of my information, a contact number, Greg’s squadron and info, and his work number. Apparently three-year-olds pushing the panic button is the sort of thing that they take very seriously. I mean come on. (I said that no one could possibly be getting in trouble over this, and he did tell me that most of the info was required solely for record keeping purposes. Sigh.) When he was done, we took our groceries and went home.
The rest of the day was better.
I cut up a few bananas, washed some (giant! but still sweet and red inside) strawberries, pulled off some small, succulent grapes, and we had fruit for lunch. I made a dip by mixing four ounces of cream cheese, about 1/2 tbsp honey, a dash of cinnamon, and a splash of milk in a bowl. I microwaved it until it stirred together fairly easily, and we were in decadent fruit heaven.
Here’s the culprit! Is this the face of a criminal? Nah. Max loves fruit, especially strawberries, although I think he was intimidated by the massive ones we bought today.
Charlie, on the other hand, detests fresh fruit. (I know, right? I think it’s a texture issue, since he will eat baby food fruit, or cooked fruit, but not fresh fruit or even applesauce.) He used one of the giant strawberries as an elaborate and messy scoop to get the honeyed cream cheese in his mouth. Mmmm, cream cheese.
A lot more is going on around here, but we’ll deal with that another day.
Hee hee, boys will be boys. But that does seem like an odd place for a button if Max was the third kid to press it.
Grocery stores + kids = adventure. My oldest once got his arm pinched in the conveyor on the checkout counter. I am sure they worried for a long time that we were going to sue them over his injuries. He still tries to lean on it. We have to remind him how badly he was pinched in there. I’ll have to be on the lookout for those little buttons now ;D
I love it!! I laughed so hard when I read this. I’m glad it’s not only me that embarassing stuff happens to. Although, it’s never included the authorities. Ha ha.