Pbenjay's Blog

English: Logo of Target, US-based retail chain (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The store that is!  There’s just something about  the allure of big box stores.  Give a woman with a new house to set up and a car to get around and sure enough the GPS has found Target, Walmart, Home Goods, Pet Supermarket and Lowes. 

By midweek, the house is really shaping up and the only problem is each room that we tackle ends up needing something she doesn’t have or needs to be replaced.  So we set off for Target pronounced Tar-zhay when you want to pretend you’re shopping on Madison Avenue in Manhattan instead of a strip mall in Florida!  And this was no ordinary run-of-the-mill Target store.  NO, this was a SUPER TARGET.  Really it was like a Mall unto itself. And one of the best things about it was that there was a Starhucks cafe inside it.  Nothing like that extra shot to get you moving down those aisles.  Fortified finally with a Grande Americano I’m ready to roll.  I say finally because unlike my home in New York City where I can walk across the street and get my morning fix, here you have to really be dressed and get in the car and drive into the commercial district of Delray Beach to get to a Starbucks.  AH, but who knew that
Target was on target when it came to keeping the shoppers in the store and fueled to buy nonetheless.

Of course we have two carts because one of them is for bouncy bouncy child and one for the loot.  This store is SO BIG that Chiara gives me some of the items to locate and she goes off in another direction. She needs an ironing board, they don’t have any! Really!  She needs a small dish drying rack, like my sleek stainless steel one.  They don’t have any. She needs a few good knives, they only carry one line and they weren’t very good.  I have to continually return to her and report in what I have found that might replace what she really wanted, which of course she doesn’t so I have to return it to its appropriate aisle.  Mind you the store is ginormous and I’m not saying Francesca was crying…but let’s just say I dnn’t have any problem locating them – I have a good ear!!

Frankie always starts out in the carriage, even buckled in, but sometime between the “I hold it”  and “I’m cold” she is out of the buckled seat and into the basket itself.  This neccessitates cargo transference as 4 boxes of padded hangers and a toaster oven go into my basket which heretofore held only a small bottle of eye makeup remover and tinted moisturizer.  Now I’m hauling Vitamin water, Pampers Pull-Ups, and other assorted sundries.

The sun was extremely intense that day and believe it or not, with all the things I did pack to go to Florida, I forgot my sunglasses.  I knew I had to buy a pair today because I could hardly keep my eyes open in the car.  I ask a store clerk where they are and by the time she finished giving me directions, I knew the last sentence was going to be “….Turn right at the second star and straight on till morning”.  The sun glasses were truly at the opposite end of the store and it so happens that children’s shoes were there  too.  As I met up with Chiara I note that Frankie is no longer is the basket, she is now on the loose.  Francesca is a climber, a runner and a mischief with a mind of her own.  In other words she is TWO.  Chiara wants to go get something so couldn’t I just keep an eye on her for a minute? Well I could if I could spin my neck around 360 degrees!  She is moving at the speed of sound between the aisles and trying to keep her in one place while maneuvering my cargo barge on wheels and carrying a handbag is not an easy feat. For a while I had her amusing herself with the brightly-colored wristwatches but she was able to grasp them and soon she was trying to buckle a lime green Swatch-like watch to her arm all the while repeating, “Frankie’s watch”.

After the watches we moved on to Jewelry and the rows of dangling beaded necklaces were soon the source of a color-identifying lesson. Some she would lightly touch and say the color, otherls like silver and gold she looked to me for an answer.  She is so funny because of course she wants (and often does) touch everything but when you say to her, “Don’t touch”, she looks at you and holds both hands up in front of her with palms facing outward and says, “Just see”.  It is so cute, I can’t stand it.

By this time I am really wishing Chiara would return.  Frankie ran off so fast and into a main aisle, that in order to catch her, I had to abandon the cart with my handbag in it, so I could catch her and bring her back. Just as Chiara returned, Francesca removed her shoes and proceeded to walk around barefoot.  She was cruising down the center aisle with no shoes and Chiara and I were following her.  I turned to my daughter and said something to the effect that I found it rather interesting that she yelled at Tom and me for walking into the playroom with our shoes and here her daughter was walking barefoot in a public store, for God’s sake and let’s not forget that while the other one is in nursery school eating an organic  lunch, Frankie wolfed down a box of 4 chocolate truffles and wouldn’t even give me a bite. Oh how much easier life is for child number

two.   I reminded her that it was I who bought the lollipops about an hour ago but regardless she wasn’t sharing.  

Sticky fingers and all we headed for the check out counter.  We still had time to hit Walmart before Finley got home from school!

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