Don’t do it. 

Don’t say it. 

If you say it, you’re going to regret it. 

Will. Don’t. 

Don’t say it!!!!!!!!

“BECAUSE SHE COULD CHOKE—”

You know those movies that start with a character jumping out a window, glass shards flying everywhere, the scene pauses mid-air, then we hear a narrator’s voice say, “That’s me. You’re probably wondering how I got here…” 

Let’s go back in time, 60 minutes or so. 

After half an hour of negotiating, outfit changes, snack assembly, and other standard grocery store preparation, we were in the minivan–babies in the captain seats, 3.5 year old daughter in the way back (yell-singing instructions on her preferred music selection), on our way to New Seasons.

It’s early afternoon, a notoriously dangerous time to get into the car because my extremely smooth driving has a lulling effect on my daughter. Whether she falls asleep or not is always a gamble. Another gamble is whether she wakes up feeling happy or murderous.

4 minutes into a 6 minute drive she falls asleep. Ok. We’ll deal with it when we get to the grocery store. 

We get there. 

One of the babies immediately takes a massive dump. But it’s not a blowout. Nice.

At this point, with non-verbal communication that has been refined over the course of a decade, my wife and I decide that she’ll take the babies in for the shopping, we’ll deal with the diaper at home, and I’ll stay in the car with Carson, who, by every indication, is fully committed to her nap. 

“Do you want to come into the store, sweetie? No? You just want to stay sleeping? Okay.” 

Those with trained eyes can see that I’m hedging a bit here. I want to be able to say, “You said you wanted to stay in the car.” Because that works so well. 

20 years ago, I think the protocol was just to crack the window and leave the kid in the car. Personally, I don’t have a problem with that, but we haven’t really explained that as an option. I didn’t want to risk her waking up, wondering why she was alone in the car in a parking lot.

She wakes up seething. “WHY [THE FUCK] DIDN’T YOU LET ME GO SHOPPING” (brackets are my own emphasis). She’s wailing. The trap I set earlier (“But you said you wanted…”) is not working. Her physical restraints–the car seat straps–are the only thing keeping this child tornado from destroying the interior of our Sienna. 

I try to explain to her that we can go into the store if she wants. Her frustration with me erupts because I’m too stupid to understand that she doesn’t want to go shopping now, she wants to have been invited in to go shopping when we arrived. Which she was. But who's keeping track of these things?

No amount of coaxing seems to help the situation so I open the back door to try to get some air in. Maybe a hit of cold, wet, winter Portland mist will provide an opportunity to calm her down. 

Her screams reverberate across the parking lot. I close the door immediately. 

Surprisingly well! Albeit a bit stinky. 

The babies are actually great shoppers. They love looking around and they get a ton of (generally appreciated) attention. 

The only trouble is that she realizes the amount of groceries being gathered is going to fill more than two bags. It’s a tricky situation to push the double baby carseat stroller—which requires two hands for reliable maneuvering—and with a bag on each shoulder… an extra hand needs to show up somewhere otherwise you’re taking two trips. Or you call your husband to come help. And he usually CAN help, but at this moment, the husband was in a tricky situation of his own.

I try to explain to Carson that I need to leave her in the car, that I’ll be right back, that it’ll just take a minute. She’s not particularly receptive to this, but what choice do I have? I abandon her, sprinting into the store to get the bags. I see my wife at the checkout, bags are up on the counter. Her phone is out, ready to tap. I grab the bags and rush back to the car. 

Carson, thankfully, is willing to pick things right back up where we left them. 

My phone rings–it’s my wife. 

“Hey”

“Hey, you need to bring the bags back. The system rebooted before my Apple Pay went through so the cashier needs to rescan everything.”

Well shit. 

I run the bags back and eventually everything gets re-scanned, the cashier helps us haul the bags back to the car, Carson calms down a little (not all the way) and we are on our way out of the New Seasons parking lot. 

The drive home is going fine. Not great. But better than the parking lot. Carson is emerging from her blackout. I know I should be patient and loving and capable of compartmentalizing the toil she just put me through (just part of raising kids! They do crazy shit!) but I’m at my wits’ end.

And then I hear Carson say,

“Daddy, I think Scarlett has something in her mouth.”

“You think? Or she does?”

“She does.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know. Actually, I think it’s paper.”

Can a baby choke on paper? Probably, right?

I pull the car over. Jump out. The baby is halfway through swallowing a napkin. 

“How did she get that??”

“Well… I think I threw it and it landed in her carseat.”

In these moments, we–I’m speaking for all parents now–hear two voices; one, soft and comforting, comes from a little angel on our left shoulder, while the other, sinister and low, purrs from the little devil on the right.

The angel says, “She’s a kid and she doesn’t know any better. This is a teaching moment.”

The devil whispers, “You have every right to be mad right now.”

I’m too weak.

“CARSON. That is NOT OK.”

“Why?!” 

(It’s worth noting here that Carson adores her younger sister.)

Don’t say it. 

“Because”

Don’t do it. 

“She”

If you say it, you’re going to regret it. 

“Could”

Will. Don’t. 

“CHOKE”

Don’t say it!!!!!!!!

“AND DIE!!!!!!!!”

…

And here I thought the crying in the parking lot was bad.

Thanks for reading! Hope you laughed. See you next time.

-Will

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