My family is currently on a little vacation. We let the kids take a little money from their piggy banks for spending money and Grandma and Grandpa also sent some in their Valentine’s cards. So right off the bat we knew priority number one for them would be getting it spent as soon as possible. We hit up a semi-famous toy store first thing this morning. My daughter immediately stopped at the first shelf of toys, grabbed a giant stuffed dolphin and was ready to check out. Her bother also hit the stuffed animals and grabbed himself a stuff snake about three times his size. Considering we were planning on spending the rest of the day walking around exploring the city I put a quick kibosh on both their choices. My son settled on two small trains which he immediately opened and spent the day if the day crashing into everything. My daughter was still determined to spend all her money in one shot and had yet to move from the wall of stuffed animals. I tried to explain that she could look all over the whole store but she had by then set her sights on three stuffed cats. It took a lot of convincing but in the end she agreed to buy one cat and save the rest of her money for later. We spent the rest of the day touring around the city and did a quick stop at Target to pick up a couple of things. My daughter excitedly hit up the toy section and this time spent her money on a Brave Barbie and bow and arrow set. As we waited to take the bus back to our hotel, Katie couldn’t get her new toys opened fast enough. It was all we could do to quickly shove the half opened package into the stroller as our bus pulled up.
As we walked into our hotel room Katie asked where her new Brave bow and arrow were? No where to be found, that’s where. After a brief discussion of “who touched it or saw it last” my husband went in search. Luckily it had only fallen out of our stroller in the lobby and was shortly returned to my daughter’s eager hands. One crises adverted…and onto the next. My son then asked for his new trains. Nope. No trains. Again we had the “who touched it or saw them last” discussion. This time we narrowed it down to Target. You see as we were shopping I was periodically pulling, out of the cart, handfuls of toys that Jack had helped himself to. Ten toy fire trucks here. Six police cars there. You get the idea. So off I went to Target. But here’s the thing. First, I have never been to this city before, let alone driven around in it. Second, I had no idea where Target is exactly, only the notion that it wasn’t too far from our hotel and my husband seemed to think I, who am completely directionally challenged, would be better off driving there than taking the bus and train. Great. So I went. I drove in the direction I guessed it was. And drove and drove and did not find it. I tried our fancy dancy useless GPS that never works for me and although it did find a Target, I knew for certain it was not the one we had been to. I decided to turn around, try again and if worse came to worse, I would just go to the other Target and buy my son his darn trains again. So off I went, back past out hotel and around the airport. This time by some miracle I did spot the Target sign between some trees and even managed to find the exit. Must have been my built-in Target homing beckon, which my husband claims I have.
I scoured the store for my sons trains; finding his trial of destruction as I went: a pike of fire engines here, a handful of police cars there. Eventually I went to customer service desk and explained my situation. After the clerk was just about to give up she said “wait, let me just check one more place” and wouldn’t you know it, my son’s trains! Big sigh of relief as I made my way back to the hotel. And a big smile on my face as I enjoyed my complimentary glass of wine at dinner.
Until I write again…
Shay
A Page From My Life 