Lost at the Target

We went to The Super Target last night to pick up a few odds and ends. Most times when we shop either Lauren or myself does the actual shopping while the other one entertains Maxfield. We picked up most of the stuff we needed when at one point we decided to split up. Lauren and Max went to go pick up cat food and I had to go over electronics. We were to meet at the front of the store.

Now I have been shopping enough with Lauren to know that whenever we split up we never are able to meet back up. The reasons for this are simple. One, I always forget to take a mental note of what she is wearing. So I walk back and forth in the front of the store looking at every person that resembles Lauren. I think to myself, “Was she wearing jeans? Was she wearing a gray sweatshirt?” I never get it right. And Two, I always try to think like her and predict which aisle she would use to get to the front of the store and head her off at the pass. I can never think like her. I always get it wrong.

So last night I am walking back and forth in front of the store looking for my wife thinking, “She said she needed candy bags, she probably is over by the holiday candy section.” I was wrong. Then it hit me, “She has Max. I just need to look for a 30 year old woman with brown hair with a toddler in the cart.” That fit the description of about 80% of the people in the store last night.
I go back to the front of the store because “Vizzini always said Go back to the beginning”. I am pacing back and forth for what seems forever but it was only like 5 minutes when I hear a toddler cry. It sounded just like Max. They say that a parent knows it’s baby’s cry. So I follow the cry. It stops. I listen again. There it is. I star walking to the sound. It stops. I stop. I try to listen over the ring of registers and the pumped in Christmas music. I hear it again. I am getting closer. It is just like playing Marco Polo.

I finally pin point the source of the cry. Not Maxfield. Parents knowing their baby’s cry thing. So not true with me. I felt like a lost kid.

A few minutes later we meet up and Lauren tells me that she has to run to the store next door. I tell her to meet Max and I out at the car. Max was getting a little antsy and it is easier to contain him in the car. I get him strapped into his car seat and I reach for the diaper bag to get him a snack when I realize that the bag is with Lauren. So in an effort to entertain him I put on some music.

Maxfield loves music. He claps hands and bobs his head to the beat. He complains when the music is not upbeat enough. He really likes when we dance together. He always laughs when either Lauren or myself shake our heads to the music.

We were listening to Ben Folds when I find the Black Eyed Peas CD and put it in the player. It’s dance party time in the KIA minivan. We were listening to track #9 (featuring James Brown). I am sitting in the front seat watching Max in the rearview mirror. He is laughing at my moves. We were really getting into it, and I was in the middle of my third Janet Jacksonesque head swerve thing when I look over and I see a Target employee watching me. The employee was gathering the shopping carts. But he just stood there watching me. I started to feel the flush of embarrassment creep up my neck and I signaled to him that I was trying to entertain the Kid in the backseat.

He looked at the back window, shrugged his shoulders and shook his head, laughed and continued to gather the carts. I then realized that we have tinted windows in the back of the van. He could not see what I referring Max. He probably thought I was some deranged idiot.