I assume that most families these days struggle with one thing above all others. Spending time with each other. Between jobs, preschool, afterschool activities, and other extracurricular activities there seems to be no time for just hanging out as a family. We, in particular, struggle with this as hubby works on Saturdays and our Sundays are filled with church and naps. So we try to take extra care to plan fun excursions together when we can.
One of our favorite summer traditions was to meet on Saturday nights for Five Guys. After gorging ourselves on ridiculously large hamburgers and the best fries you’ve ever had we would head next door to Cold Stone to get ice cream. There are these great little picnic tables with umbrellas outside where we sat and people watch while we enjoy our treats.
This was our tradition every Saturday night. One such night we were sitting at the crowded tables outside Cold Stone and laughing at DC (then 1) as he made his “ice cream face” with each bite. Everything was perfect. DC was sitting on my lap digging into my butter pecan waffle cone like a madman when it happened.
I heard it before I saw it. A strange rumbling sound. When I looked down to see what was making this strange wet noise I saw what I can only describe as a “Poocano”. It was bubbling out of the top of the diaper faster than I have ever seen. The next few moments stretched on as in slow motion.
“Ohhhhhhhhhhh!” I shrieked as I jumped up and reached for a napkin. By this point the overflow had reached maximum capacity and was cascading down the back of his pants, onto the bench, and splattering onto the crowded sidewalk. Mortified I jumped up and grabbed the baby running toward our car screaming “UNLOCK THE CAR!!! THE DIAPER BAG IS IN THE TRUNK!!!”
Hubby scrambled for the keys and quickly instructed RJ (then 3) not to move while he helped me. We frantically met at the back of my SUV and struggled to get the lift gate up. While hubby fumbled with the diaper bag I wasted no time in stripping the baby of all of his poo covered clothes and began desperately wiping him from head to toe with baby wipes. It was about this time that we heard RJ (who we had left all alone at the picnic table) let out an ear shattering scream. Certain that she was being abducted we both jerked to attention and hubby started running in her direction. In the commotion I lost my death grip on DC who saw his opportunity to escape. He jerked away from me and began streaking through the parking lot without a stitch of clothing on covered from head to toe with poop. I dropped my pile of dirty wipes and took off after him tackling the naked poo covered rugrat right on the sidewalk in front of a table of a happy family eating their ice cream.
Then the world stopped. As I looked up from the sidewalk they all sat frozen staring at me their ice cream quickly melting in the hot summer night. People were stuck in midstance halfway into the ice cream parlour mouths agape. I turned around to see what tragedy had befallen RJ and to ensure my husband was rescuing her. It seems she had gotten a finger caught in the wire mesh of the picnic table and had dropped her ice cream into the fresh pile of poo her brother had deposited on the sidewalk.
As hubs worked to free her from the evil picnic table I wrestled the baby back to the trunk of my car and was finally able to get a diaper on him. Of course there were no spare clothes in the diaper bag. Defeated we decided that this incident had cut short our outing and proceeded to throw out what was left the ice cream and sheepishly pack ourselves into the car. As for the mess on the sidewalk there was little that could be done.
I could not stop laughing as we drove away. My husband, on the other hand, did not seem to find any humor in the whole situation. He did remark about halfway home that he could not get the smell of poop out of his nose and it was at this juncture we realized that we had overlooked the fact that I too was covered in poo.
Cold stone and its patrons will never quite be the same after this incident. And now you know why we can never ever return. Ever.
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