Multi-tasking

"What do you guys want for dinner?" I asked the monkeys. Warren was busy preparing for Thanksgiving and had banned us from the kitchen.

"Lunchables!" they exclaimed in unison.

"Lunchables?" I asked, perplexed.

"We're going to Gigi's," Satchel explained.

"And..." I pressed.

"And we like to eat Lunchables in the car on the way to Gigi's house."

Okay. I got it. The last time they went, I agreed to let them each get a Lunchable. I don't remember why. The Lunchables have some sort of Star Wars thing on them, so they are extra enticing now.

"Guys, tomorrow is Thanksgiving and the grocery store is going to be packed," I said. It was 5:30pm on Wednesday. "How about we go get some pizza?"

"No! Lunchables!" they whined.

I thought it over. I did need to interview someone for my upcoming CA story on plastic bags. Maybe I'd run into someone with reusable bags, ask them a few questions, and kill two birds with one stone. (My earlier, lazier attempt to interview my Facebook friends was met with disapproval by one of my editors.)

"What about McDonald's?" I asked wanting to be sure they were serious about the Lunchables before braving the Kroger mob.

"NO!"

"Alright," I said.

I loaded the monkeys and their overnight bags into the car and headed east. As we pulled into the parking lot at Highland & Poplar, I was already regretting my decision. "Now listen," I said. "I might need to talk to some people for a story I'm doing, so I need you guys to be quiet if you see me talking ok?"

"Okay," they said.

"And I want you to stay in the basket!"

"Okay," they said.

As we walked in I took a moment to gawk at all of the plastic bags flying out of the store. I realized that I was going to be hard pressed to find anyone for the story, and pushed the idea to the back of my mind.

Before we could get to the deli section, Warren called with a request for potatoes and canned artichokes. The former was much easier to locate than the latter. It took us about 30 minutes to gather the few things we came for and the extra things we decided to pick up along the way. When we got to the check out section, I wanted to cry. The lines stretched forever.

I took a deep breath and headed for the self-checkout. I have a love/hate with the self-checkout. I looked in my basket to see if I had anything that was going to make it even more challenging, like produce. The bag of potatoes had a bar code, so I figured I could handle it.

By now the monkeys were antsy, loud, and more than ready to start piling turkey on top of cheese on top of crackers. As I gave them the "just a few more minutes" pep talk, I noticed that a nice young man in front of me had a reusable grocery bag stuffed under his arm.

Score!

I took out my little notebook and pen and approached him. "Hi, I'm doing a story for the CA on plastic bags," I said. "I see you brought your own bag. Can I ask you a few questions?"

"Sure," he said eagerly.

I was able to jot down his name and age before it was his turn to self-check himself out.

"I'll be happy to wait for you," he said.

Awesome.

He was done in no time, so I swooped in and started ringing up my six things. Immediately the electronic woman started yelling at me. "Please remove the last item from the bag and put it on the scanner."

"I didn't put anything in my bag!" I argued.

What I had done was place my reusable bag on the metal rings that hold the plastic bags. My interviewee then stepped in and offered to hold my bag for me.

Aw.

I managed to scan a few things before the voice came back. "Please remove the last item from the bag and put it on the scanner."

"Jesus, what now?" I complained. I commenced trying to scan things, but the voice would not give in. As the Kroger employee assigned to help idiots like me approached, I realized that my gouda hadn't rung up. I remedied it just in time for the Kroger dude to realize he wasn't needed.

"Are they twins?" the interviewee asked me as he motioned towards the monkeys.

"Believe it or not, one is six and one is four," I said.

The Kroger dude had decided to stay and make sure I was able to finish my transaction in a timely fashion since there were a hoard of people giving me the stink eye by now. (Everyone except my patient interviewee.) To make matters worse, the monkeys were attempting to "help" me by leaning out of the cart and scanning their hands.

I got everything rung up and scanned my debit card. "Do you have a Kroger card?" the Kroger dude asked.

"No," I huffed. Usually I just enter my phone number, but I was frazzled.

"Here, use mine," the interviewee said as he swiped his card and saved me about $5.

Before I could thank him, I noticed the shopping cart full of 100lbs of monkeys tipping over out of the corner of my eye. Somehow I managed to catch the cart and avert disaster. The interviewee rushed over to help me and said, "Wow, you're really multi-tasking aren't you."

I'd say that's the understatement of the year.

"I'm doing it very poorly. Thank goodness you aren't the one doing a story on me!" I said in my most "never let 'em see you sweat" tone.

We moved out of the check-out aisle and I wracked my brain trying to remember what questions I needed to ask. My interviewee thankfully was very astute and gave me some excellent quotes right away.

I thanked him, put away my notebook, begged the monkeys to stay calm just a few more minutes, and braved the parking lot. I had a knot in my stomach the whole way to my mom's. I kept picturing my shopping cart falling over and my monkeys mangled bodies beneath it. Sometimes doing it all is just too much.