I went to Toys R Us yesterday to pick up a gift for a baby shower.
Now, the first time I set foot in this store as an adult was a few years ago, and I remember that I was actually looking forward to waxing nostalgic about all the enjoyable hours I had spent in there as a child, gazing in wonder at the millions of toys just sitting there on the shelves, begging for me to take them home so we could live happily ever after. Unfortunately, my experience couldn't have been further from those fuzzy pink candy-coated memories that I recalled. Instead of wandering peacefully and aimlessly down the aisles with a content smile on my face while reflecting on my childhood self, I spent about ten minutes dodging flustered parents and children hopped up on the magic of toys while searching desperately for the organic bouncy-chair-slash-high-chair-slash-personal-masseuse or whatever the hell was on my friend's registry before I gave up, grabbed an equally flustered Toys R Us employee by the arm, and demanded they find the item for me. I then obtained a $15 greeting card and a $25 pack of gift wrap (seriously, the markups at this place are ridiculous) (also, typing that sentence made me feel really old) and had to brave/muscle my way through a thirty minute wait at checkout before I could escape to the safety of my car.
"Never again," I promised myself as I pealed out of the parking lot and home to a blessedly child-free apartment and a tumbler of Johnnie Walker Black Label on the rocks.
And I've kept that promise.
I've been to a lot of baby showers in the past year, and instead of putting myself through that panic-laden obstacle course each time, I now use this magical invention they call "in-store pickup". I buy the item off the registry online, and when I get to the store, all I have to do is go to the service desk and show them my pick-up ticket; they check my drivers license, hand me my previously-purchased item, and I'm on my merry way.
At least, that's how it usually works.
After picking out a gift online for the baby shower I'm attending this weekend, I stopped into Toys R Us last night on my way to see Iron Man 3 to pick it up. It was a Wednesday night, and there were very few cars in the parking lot, so I was lulled into a false sense of security. When I walked in the doors and saw the store practically empty, I thought to myself, "Well, I have a few minutes to kill. I may as well take a look around." Maybe I'd get that candy-coated trip down memory lane after all.
Oh, Ginger. Ginger, Ginger, Ginger. Will you ever learn?
I turned the corner, and an ear-shattering screech stopped me in my tracks; in front of me was a kid in full-meltdown mode. His face was bright red, and he was alternately crying and shrieking in a car alarm-like pattern, and there was so much snot, and the noise level rendered me temporarily unable to do anything but stare. The mom was holding the child and ignoring him completely while calmly carrying on a conversation with a store employee who looked like he'd rather be fending off a pack of wild dogs with nothing but a ballpoint pen than continue said conversation. To be honest, I'm not sure how he was even able to answer her questions, because I wasn't even able to conform my features into a socially-acceptable, uninterested look, much less form any sort of cohesive sentence; I literally just stood there, completely aware that I had a look of disgust on my face, and completely unable to do anything about it.
Now, don't get me wrong. I do like kids, and I'd like to have some of my own someday. I may be turning 30 this year, but I'm okay waiting another, oh, say, five years or so before that happens. Still, I have enough kids in my life to completely understand that they're insane, and they do insane things, and that, as a parent, sometimes you just have to let them cry and scream it out. I get that. I'm not a monster. But when I see a kid having a meltdown like that in public, my immediate, gut reaction, before the "kind and gentle" half of me starts to reprimand me for being an asshole and I politely turn away, is just complete and utter disgust and disdain. And yes, I am 100% positive that, when I do have kids of my own, this will come back to bite me in the ass.
I regained my senses after a moment and wisely decided to abandon my attempts at childhood nostalgia, choosing instead to make a beeline for the service desk and get the hell out of there, when I was stopped dead in my tracks by another child who threw themselves into my path with wild, desperate, emotional-filled abandon and began to wail, something about Guppies (apparently a cartoon character, judging by the toy next to her) and "I hate you!" The frazzled mother wasn't far behind; she apologized profusely and I mustered as patient of a smile as I could in response while I weaved my way around them and then paused when I remembered that I still needed to pick up a greeting card.
Fuck.
I weighed my options before sighing heavily and turning around again, making my way back to the greeting cards where, you guessed it, I was confronted with yet another screaming child. (I can't make this shit up.) Now, here's where it gets fun; after I blindly grabbed the first card I saw that looked appropriate and finally made it to the Service Desk, there was a line of three people.
Three people. Think about it for a moment...
Yep, you guessed it; it was the same three sets of parents and screaming children that I had encountered on my way through the store. Why were they all in line at the Service Desk? Well, because it was a Wednesday night, and the store was slow, so they didn't have any registers open.
Let me say that again, because it's just so fucking ridiculous.
They didn't have any registers open; the only register open was the service desk, which was also the only place where I could pick up the item that I had already purchased and was sitting patiently right there on the back counter... so close, but so, so far away. So, I sat there for five minutes, listening to a cacophony of deafening shrieks, with what I knew was a look of complete impatience, frustration, and disgust on my face, and even though I felt bad for being such an asshole, there absolutely nothing I could do about it. Literally. When one of the kids stop to take a breath and her eyes caught mine, I tried to smile, in an effort to be nice, but I'm fairly sure it came out as some kind of terrifying grimace, because she immediately turned away and started screaming even louder.
I think the best part of it all was that the woman who was being rung up when I got in line was clearly what I refer to as a "Brookfield Mom" - gigantic diamond ring, Louis Vuitton purse, perfectly coiffed hair, and her child, who was still screaming, was clutching an Organic Apple Juicebox - and, ignoring all the chaos around her and the fact that there was only one register open and a line forming, still made the employee go get the item that she wanted to exchange from halfway across the store instead of going and getting it her damn self.
It was at that point that I was finally able to abandon my look of disdain in favor of shooting murderous daggers at the back of that woman's head.
Another employee noticed my expression, had mercy on me, and walked me back to the register by the video games so I could get the hell out of there. He even said to me as he was ringing up my purchase, "I hate waiting in line, too, so I thought I'd help you out." I felt a little bit like an asshole for being so obviously impatient, but mostly, I really just wanted to go let the air out of the tires on the Brookfield Mom's BMW, and/or force-feed her child a McDonald's hamburger and 15 Pixie Sticks.
And that, my friends, is why I will never, ever set foot in a Toys R Us again... until I have children of my own. And when I do, I will be armed with travel-size bottles of alcohol and $20 bills, and when my kid starts throwing a tantrum, and I see that single woman with a look of disgust on her face, I'll just hand her one of each, wink, and say, "Enjoy it while you can, sweetcheeks. Enjoy it while you can."
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