Uhh ... hot water anyone?

There are three types of people in the world:

Folks who need shoping lists,
folks who don't need shopping lists, and
folks who think that they don't need shopping lists.

I am the first one (duh). Can you guess which category Dad falls into? Anyone? Old friends, chime in anytime ...

So we went to the Wal Mart Thursday. Unfortunately Dad was feeling a bit tired before we left so I endevoured to make haste, a mind-set that generally makes me nervous and tense (I HATE being rushed). I did not, however, speed at any point. Of course this didn't keep Dad from saying - as we were inching along at 53mph in a 55 - "don't scare me to death, now!". If I remember correctly he was dramatically clutching the upholstery at the time.

So we hit the Captain D's to stuff Dad full of fish and hushpuppies (he'd been fantasizing about it); the Micky D's, for the babes ("Happy meeeeeeeal!"); the Tractor Supply, for chicken feed (see, I hadn't forgotten about the farm); and on to the Wal Mart.

I discovered immediately that getting 4 small children and a partially disabled man in and out of a vehicle is neither easy nor quick. But we managed. I chose to push the smalls in one shopping trolley and let the two bigs walk (as opposed to using two trolleys, everybody riding, and I push one and pull the other). Dad propelled himself in his wheelchair.

Now *I* had my list on paper. Dad "knew what he needed".

In an effort to be quick I sent Dad off to look for his sweatshirts while I hit the health and beauty section and the home section. We met back up after a bit and headed for the groceries, him snagging a coffeemaker on the way (I use instant, Dad wants drip).

I confess that I was already close to level orange. My knee hurt, Dad was clearly uncomfortable and tired (remember that he's pushing himself along), and I'm trying to hurry and get everything on my list.

It didn't help that having Boy and the Human Crash Test Dummy walk made Dad very anxious. He kept saying: "I would watch them. I wouldn't take my eyes off them." and, as we learned on the trip down, when Dad gets anxious I become a nervous wreck.

Now my children are extremely well behaved. They are not allowed to run in stores, scream in stores, touch merchandise, or stray more than a few feet from me. There are no exceptions to these rules and this is how they were raised, so they're really great to take shopping.

But Dad's paranoia put me on edge (yes, a short trip, I know) so by the time we got to the groceries I was screeching at my model children (who were uniformly wearing 'what the heck is wrong with mommy' expressions) pushing the trolley as fast as my knee would allow, and mentally trimming down my list to just the we-might-starve-if-we-don't-get-it essentials.

We went through the check-out like gangbusters and it wasn't until we got back out to the van, dad inside, kids installed, groceries loaded, engine cranked, that I realized that there was no way we got everything we came for.

Didn't get everything? After all that? I checked my list. No, all the essentials were crossed off.

I looked over at Dad who was blissfully digesting his battered-and-fried-in-fat fish and watching the denizens of the Newberry Wal Mart parking lot. The kids laughed and talked in the back.

The word 'coffeemaker' drifted through my brain.

Yep, you guessed it. Dad got only the sweatshirts ... everything else on his 'mental list' scampered off into the far corners of his brain after that. If it wasn't on my list it didn't get gotten. We forgot his Cokes, his excersize mat, his Advil. We're a strange pair, each scatterbrained in his own way. We could be related.

Oh and about the coffemaker? Well, Dad bought a drip coffeemaker then *I* forgot to buy drip coffee.