Cattle Drive

There is a journey I dread. Unfortunately, I am forced to make this particular journey multiple times a week when my kids are eating their peanut butter and jelly between two slices of pickle (because we are out of bread), or when they have dish towels duct taped to their bottoms (because we are out of diapers.)

The entire excursion to the grocery store is a process, not unlike historical cattle drives out west. First, you have to round up all of the kids, wrestle each of them down and brand them with pants, because “No, Darling, you may not go to the store naked.” Then there are the preliminary trips to the bathroom, and the shoes to be hunted, and matched, and lost, and argued over, and finally attached to hooves––I mean, feet.

And just as I am sure that prior to the trip out west, each cow insisted to the Cowboy it was of absolute necessity to bring along a favorite blanket, or baby doll, or transformer, so too my children will beg me to allow them “just one thing, Mommy!” And I am sure, like me, the Cowboy just sighed and allowed Clarence the Cow to bring his entire matchbox car collection even though Clarence would make it about twenty-seven seconds before it was handed over for the Cowboy to stick in his giant Cowboy purse, all because it wasn’t worth the fight. After all, you can’t argue with a cow.

However, the real journey, the true test of faith and determination, is not the preparation for the trip, and it’s not even the circus-like experience that occurs once you are in the supermarket. The hard part, the dreaded part––is the parking lot.

I’m sure the Pioneer women very gladly drove a rickety covered wagon behind a herd of cows for hundreds of miles with twelve pioneer children singing “One hundred bottles of beer on the wall” on repeat. The Pioneer women probably did not bat an eye at sleeping on the ground next to a husband who ate nothing but beans for ten months. I doubt she even thought twice about killing a few snakes and having to wash the skunk smell out of clothes on Mother’s Day. But I guarantee you, if a Pioneer Woman pulled her buggy up to a Wal-Mart parking lot, she would take one look and say, “Floyd, I reckon I’m dun.”

Super Market parking lots are not for the weak of heart. Well, actually, they are for the weak of heart, because the weak of heart get a handicapped parking spot. I am neither handicapped nor weak of heart and therefore my assigned parking space is approximately 6.2 miles from the entrance of the store. Along with my non-VIP parking spot, I can count on the fact that the moment I pull my SUV sized covered wagon into a spot and put it in park, the temperatures of the parking lot will either spike upward of those on the surface of the sun, or there will be a torrential downpour. Or both. Sometimes there is hail.

I can remember one parking lot excursion where I was counting myself lucky because I actually found a parking spot close enough from which I could make out the lettering on the store sign. Also, the thermometer in my car was registering the temperature outside at a mild ninety-eight degrees. I scanned the parking lot horizon and saw only tumbleweed and the mirage of a shopping cart drop nearby, as the actual drop was a good half-mile walk. I guess we’re hand holding it, I sighed, as I hefted my giant purse over my shoulder and began the process of unhooking, unfastening and unleashing my four youngin’s into the wild west of the parking lot. They predictably fought over who held whose hand, someone predictably squeezed a hand too tight, someone predictably pulled and someone predictably fell and skinned a knee. I was right in the middle of thinking that a cattle prod would make things so much easier, when my youngest broke formation and made a beeline for the sewer grate in the middle of the road. Within seconds, I was forced to choose between my other three children becoming road kill, or saving my keys, which were now in my toddler’s sticky fingers dangling above the sewer grate.

Somehow, I managed to neutralize the situation and cowherd all four children and a miraculous set of car keys toward the entrance, all while navigating the half dozen boisterous greetings and exclamations of “Boy! You have your hands full!”

I was just about to commandeer a cart when I felt a light touch on my elbow.

“I had eight children of my own,” she said in a voice that was as sweet and clear as a spring breeze. “And Honey,” she said, “you’re gonna make it.”

Before she turned and continued on her way, I noticed how the sun turned her white hair to gold. I noticed her nails were a glossy manicured pink and that she wore an adorable pair of sandals. I noticed she smelled like lavender. But mostly, I noticed that despite the wrinkles on her face, she smiled as she spoke, and what was more––her eyes sparkled.

I felt myself pull her words into me and breathe them in the way I do my children when they are clean and fresh out of the bath. I’m gonna make it… I thought squaring my shoulders, pushing my buggy and prodding my children on into the great wild yonder of the supermarket… and my eyes will still sparkle.