Miss Marple, Kroger, and That Time I Took a Baby Rafting

Today a disaster of epic proportions occurred.

We just got home from a lovely vacation in Crested Butte, Colorado. It was a great couple of weeks, despite having to sleep on the top bunk in a room that stayed precisely 80* during the night, and was also filled with all of my children.

As only responsible parents would, we took The Baby, who cannot even walk, on a rafting trip.

So today we hit the ground running.  I had a doctor's appointment first thing, and our precious babysitter Becca came over bright and early, which I know is every college girl's dream at 8:15 am the last week of summer vacation.  She is a gem and I will not give you her number.

Upon realizing all I had to feed my entire family for breakfast was cinnamon toast made from hamburger buns, I stopped by Kroger on the way home.

I walked in and stopped at the floral department first thing, because when I get home from Crested Butte every year I live a better version of my life for about six weeks that is filled with healthy dinners, fresh flowers, good smelling candles, clean and ironed laundry, etc.  It wears off about Halloween.

(Incidentally go straight to https://shop.magnoliahomes.net/products/joannas-signature-candle and buy this right now.  I am best-friends-in-my-head with Joanna Gaines, and her signature candle is amazing.  Jojo always knows best.  You can take that to the bank.)

I grabbed some flowers then started shopping.  That's when it happened.

I literally bumped into a new shelf that wasn't there two weeks ago when I was shopping for our trip. Oops, clumsy me, better pay more attention.

Then it happened again.

Then I went to the next aisle, which should have been filled with a delicious assortment of La Croix, with which I am slightly obsessed, and there was nothing but soda.  Soda for miles and miles and miles. Then I couldn't find baby food or granolabarsorsoaporeggsor OH MY SWEET AUNT WHERE IS EVERYTHING?

I swear it was just like that scene in Flight of the Navigator where David wakes up in the ditch and goes back to his house only to find it inhabited by an older couple who look pitifully at him and ask him if he's lost while he screams and runs through their house looking for his parents.

All poor David wanted was to see a familiar face. And look what happened to him. I am not that far away from this.

Close to hyperventilation I found a Kroger employee who gave me an alphabetical list of the new locations of major items.  I rolled my cart around with my nose to that paper for AN HOUR.  AN HOUR, PEOPLE.  At Kroger.  My Kroger.  The place I have been Vacationing Alone Every Sunday From 5:15-6:00 PM Since September 2014.

It was a travesty, I tell you.

Then on the way home I drove straight through the TCU campus (big mistake) and it was filled with thousands hundreds tens of new students and their parents walking aimlessly, looking for their dorms. According to Google Maps I live precisely 1.0 mile (4 minutes without traffic) from Kroger. It took me 15 minutes to get home.

While waiting for the millionth SUV-- let's be honest it was a 2015 Lexus LX because this is TCU and RIF BAM something-- to turn left into a parking lot across one solid mile of oncoming traffic, it hit me.

I am getting old.  Only old people are mad when their grocery store gets rearranged.  Only old people are mad at 18-year old babies wandering around their new homes trying to get things straight in their heads.  Only old people want to eat an early dinner and put everyone to bed so they can put on their pajamas and watch Miss Marple on Netflix.

And you know what?  I am not even sitting here trying to remedy this problem in my mind.  I am sitting here, typing it for the world to see and owning it.  Three kids at three different schools and homemade dinner most nights and soccer and ballet and a husband who occasionally has to disappear for two weeks for trials-- those things make you old.

But they also give me an abundance of memories for which I am forever grateful, as well as make for really good stories, like the time the hubs left for a trial one week before The Baby's due date and ended up coming home in the nick of time, or the time I may or may not have had a babysitter to watch my younger kids during All Knowing Second Grader's ballet observation day, but mindlessly dropped her off and wandered Target alone for an hour instead. Don't judge.

So this is my announcement to all my readers reader:

I'm an old lady and I don't care.  I like early dinners and quiet houses and for the love of everything that is good in this world, I like my grocery stores to keep everything EXACTLY WHERE IT WAS TWO WEEKS AGO.  It is what it is, as my old boss used to say.  In a life where I had a job and talked to adults all day.  Which is pretty much erased from my memory because as I have already told you I am old, and old people's minds are a teensy bit fuzzy.

One final, personal note to my friends and family - If I leave to go to the grocery store, and I don't return within an hour, please come look for me because I am likely lost in the Kroger on South University.