A Comprehensive Guide to Grocery Store Behavior

My dear children seem to be in need of a refresher course in this area, and so I am preparing this manual for them... Actually, we did have a pleasant moment today in the store when Aidan asked if we could look at toys, and I said no. He responded with, "okay," and another shopper commented, "Wow, that was easy!" However, for the most part, all of our obedience and good sense leaves us the moment we enter a retail establishment.

In the parking lot:

• We do not run.
• We do not skip.
• Or jump. Or play hop scotch. Or anything else that should happen into our punkin' heads.
  
• We do not climb on the structure that holds carts. That is made for putting carts away, not for children to use as a jungle gym.
• We do not pick up interesting things that we find in the parking lot.
  
• We watch for cars, but we do not point our fingers at cars like we are shooting them.
• We do not climb up the outside of the building. (One of mine has tried this. More than once. No joke.)
  

In the store:

• We do not say "can we buy" or "do we need" or any other variation on this question.
• We do not run.
• We do not run in circles around the cart.
• We do not run in circles around those posts that go up to the ceiling (do those have names??)
• We do not walk s-l-o-w-l-y and then yell, "MOMMY WAIT FOR MEEEE!" as we run full speed ahead to catch up with Mom who is 2 ft. ahead.
• We do not swing our arms wildly while walking.
  
• We talk to our siblings, but we do not play tickle games or hiding games.
• We do not point out to Mom every single item we see that is JUST LIKE one that we have at home. Mom does not need to acknowledge every box of Life cereal, loaf of bread, or box of kleenex that is "just like we have!"
• We try our best not to be in the way of others. We try not to take up the entire aisle with just our family.
• We do not run our hands along all the price tags that stick out from the shelves.
• We do not run our hands along the raw meat case.
• We do not touch all the packages of raw meat.
• We try to not ask "What's this?" while point to items (some of them embarrasing) more than 5 times in a single aisle.
  

In the check-out:

• We do not climb up onto the bagging area.
• We do not push the button to make the conveyor belt move.
• We do not touch all the packages of candy and toys.
• We do not ask Mom to calculate how much more allowance we need to afford a yo-yo ball while she is trying to pay.
• We do not play with the credit card machine.

Hopefully this instruction guide will be helpful in your family! Or, you can follow my best rule of all, which is that Mom does most of the shopping while the kids are home with Dad!