Outing

He's been sick, which make him more irascible than usual.
Today I cleverly baited my PLEASE can we get the hell out of the house?!? trap with a trip to Target, possibly his favorite place on earth, and even so it was a near thing.  He opened with his patented wailing fit on the theme of NO!, revised several minutes later in a super casual way.  He sidled up quietly, looking off into the middle distance and suggested, as if the notion had just blossomed in his mind fully formed, "Uh Dada? How about we go to TARGET at night?"

Being father to the Fuss hones your pragmatism to an edge you could shave a grizzly bald with.

"Okay!" I yelped, sweeping him up & heading downstairs, aiming to have him strapped in his carseat in case his position continued to evolve.

When we arrived he unleashed his tradional battle cry;
"Dada, want a BEAR DRINK!", Fuss speak for a cherry Icee.
Being in a conciliatory mood after getting him out of the house without a 15 round heavyweight title fight, I acceded to his demand.  Plus, I always sneak a couple of sips on the sly.

Two tween girls at the nearby soda fountain discussed the drink they were sharing thusly-

"This tastes FLAT!"
"YOU taste flat!"
"Yeah, well that' because I'm a human being!"


At which they both started laughing hysterically and stumbled, nearly doubled over, in the rough direction of the exit.

Fuss blasted a Herculean sneeze as I pushed our cart toward the promised land and ended up with a fat green slug poking out of his right nostril.  I detoured for the Kleenex and popped open a box.  This took us past the produce department, and he demanded a banana- they were a quarter, so I grabbed a likely suspect and left it to his tender mercies.  By the time we left it looked like someone had killed a homeless guy in our cart, a mound of used kleenex soaked in boogers & cherry Icee with a banana peel on top. 


The shelves of the toy department were reminiscent of a Sarajevo grocery store during the siege, although Fuss didn't mind..  Our impromptu market research revealed that Lego is pwning the various challengers to their throne, Littlest Pet Shop trumps Zoobles, Thomas the Tank Engine & Chuggington Station are evenly matched & that nothing was hotter this year than Monster High dolls.


Considering the state of our cart I chose an older woman for our cashier, and so was graced with a look of knowing compassion as she rang up the half empty tissue box and banana peel.

On our way out Fuss demanded a refill of his Bear Drink, and another pair of gals were hanging out by the soda fountain, somewhat older and more dissipated. Their discussion was inaudible, but the taller of the pair was wearing Daisy Duke cutoffs over a pair of silver stripper pumps with a tattoo in 72 point type just above her left ankle reading

FUCK YOU