A trip to the circus and a strangely perfect day

Okay, the circus was actually Walmart. But there were rides and peanuts and smelly things!

I've noticed the dirty, chewing-gum-infested Flintstones car ride outside Walmart (and I always have to convince whichever child I have with me at the time that it's out of order), but I had never noticed that Walmart had a carousel in the entryway to the store. For only 50 cents, my child can have 30 seconds of nonstop fun! Which is only, let's see...almost 2 cents per second! The deals are unbelievable at Walmart! And it was such fun for Jason, the little two-seater carousel. (It looked almost like he was doing pirouettes.) He had a grimace grin on his face the entire time and exclaimed “I’m getting really dizzy!” “Wheeee!” over and over again! Unfortunately, the ride was a little too quick for Jay who had been trying to get off since Second One so he was very disappointed. Ah, well. He can always ride it again the next time we go shopping. We’ll just have to make sure we leave the house 30 seconds earlier to allow enough time for shopping.

After Jason's nausea subsided, we went inside and he immediately spotted the candy aisle. “Mommy, can I get a treat?” “Well, of course!” said I, and then proceeded to read the ingredients list on the 537 varieties of candy (with Everyday Low Prices!). My kids are allergic to various things, so I have become an Expert Ingredients List Reader. So, I finally narrowed it down to two possibilities: gummy bears and Circus Peanuts. But I give the boys gummy-bear-type supplements every day (which I will plug here because they are so scrumpdillyicious and therefore easy to administer to children), so gummy bears usually aren’t considered to be a treat by their standards. Jay opted for the Circus Peanuts. I felt sorry for the poor boy, because these things have to be the most disgusting idea for a candy EVER. Does anyone even buy them? That is, besides moms like me, who are desperate to find treats that only have ingredients like “sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, glucose, fructose, maltose, artificial flavoring, and artificial colors” in order to avoid the nasty allergens? And also, why have “peanut” in the name if the only thing “peanut” about them is the shape? They are ORANGE. And they taste like FAKE BANANA. And they have the texture of STALE MARSHMALLOWS. Yet Jason seemed to find them to be a tasty mid-morning treat. (Shhhh!)

Onward to the smelly things. Tell me, how can people be so filthy that they literally emit enough of an odor that it permeates the air throughout an entire store? No matter where I went, I smelled Stinky People and it was turning my stomach. Jay kept yelling, “I smell POOP!” People would turn to look at him, and then he’d laugh and jump around. See? There was even a clown at the circus.

So, eventually we ran into The Family That Doesn’t Bathe. (Not surprisingly, they were nowhere near the soap aisle nor the deodorant aisle.) I literally had to hold my breath as we walked through the fog of stench that surrounded them. WHAT would cause people to have such a horrific odor?? It was like they all rolled around in manure before dressing.

I gagged all the way to the checkout area, while the clown yelled, “I smell POOP!” a few more times because that is SO FUNNY when people turn to look at him and then give me a look of barely concealed disgust. I hissed at him, “If you don’t stop saying that, I will take away your Circus Peanuts!” He said, “I don’t want them anymore. They taste yucky!” (I guess it must’ve been the fifth one that finally convinced him.)

We finally escape to the parking lot where the air was a lot clearer, and I commented, “That was awful!” And Jason said, “Someone pooped in the store! That was funny!” (I can see how he would find poop to be humorous, given my reaction to it when I encounter it in odd places at home.)

So, today, in the hopes of spending some April-fresh quality time with Jason while Drew was at the last day of his summer program, we attended a children's event at the library. The librarian ran a science-related workshop with activities that centered around books. Despite the fact that Jason is taking Albuterol for asthma at the moment, which causes hyperactivity (oh, dear), he only monopolized the librarian's attention half of the time. So things went really well. He basically shot his arm up to answer questions, or to pose questions, or to make nonsensical comments every 20 seconds or so. The librarian was very patient. Even when Jason jumped up and led a conga line around the room for about five minutes before she could call order to the room again. And after all of that, we still got free M&M's, Chips Ahoy cookies, and there was a reporter there who took our picture for a local newspaper! This is fantastic because I was having a really good hair day and Jason’s clothes had no stains! (Okay, this is the only part of our great day that I'm lying about.)

And after the workshop – yes, there’s more! – we picked out some cute children's DVDs from the library to watch later, went out to lunch, ate some really good food (he actually ate something! at a restaurant!), and we even had a really cool waitress. We picked up Drew, who had “a wonderful day!” according to his instructor, and both boys are now sitting angelically in front of the t.v. watching the new DVDs, eating microwave popcorn, and sipping juice. I can hear myself breathe. And I swear I just saw a pig fly across the front yard.

Stay tuned for an upcoming story about how the roof fell in after I hit "Publish Post."