There’s certain truths of parenting, the Murphy’s Law of raising humans, that when you absolutely need things to go your way they probably won’t.

Forgot the extra diaper? The baby is going to crap and play with it while he’s in the shopping cart. Your kid forgot to take their lunch to school? Today is the day she skipped breakfast and you have an appointment at her lunchtime. Your friend from out-of-town is planning on meeting up with you tomorrow night? You’ve been waiting to see her for months and even went to the trouble of doing a cleanse to try to squeeze into your jeans? Yeah, that’s a wet sneeze and a cough down the hall that you just heard this morning.

It’s ok, I’ll make it through today like any other – oh, what the fu-?!!

That is my internal dialogue at least once a day. I’m reminded of my flawed logic that particular day the moment my hand reached into my purse for my wallet and found a wet, unwrapped granola bar glued to the inside of the pocket instead. My wallet? Good question. Oh, well, it can’t get much – OH WHAT THE FU-?!… Apparently my wallet wasn’t attractive enough so my daughter flared it out with sparkly stickers. My credit cards needed ornamentation as well and were now glued together into a disco butterfly deck.

“Oh, fu%& me…,” I thought I said this internally but I did not.

The checker is staring at me like a dead fish. He finally shuts his mouth and looks away as I desperately try to insert the credit card into the chip reader. Owen is babbling at me and mocking me, “Not nah’ – not nah’ – SHHHH!” He laughs at his comedy genius and shrieks when the checker makes eye contact. His Gilligan bucket hat can’t come down fast enough and I can tell without looking that he’s pulling his hat down to block the man’s view. The employee’s eyes become increasingly larger as I look up at him and hear Owen giggling in the background, “Uh…Ma’am? Is your baby eating chocolate?”

Do you know how hard it is to brush feces out of a toddler’s teeth? Only a mom knows the level of humbling vileness that we have to sink to and I was there elbows deep. It was only ten in the morning.

So now I avoid taking Owen to the neighborhood grocery store unless I want him to: a.) play with himself in public, b.) strip in public, c.) scream at strangers, or d.) eat things that no human should ever eat. Accept for the Fred Meyer’s. I hate the Fred Meyer’s so I’m ok with inflicting him on them. He chants and screams every time they make an overhead announcement. As opposed to Whole Foods that has free bananas for him, no overhead announcements, and smells like a spa. When he makes me mad I drive by slowly without stopping so he knows I mean business. He threw his book at the back of my head from his carseat in response.

My purse will never smell like perfume again until my kids most likely move out and it will never be small enough to be considered an evening bag. I look like I’m a deranged disaster preparedness salesperson most days. If you proffer up a wound, thirst, hunger, belly ache or boredom I’ll have some item to fix it within my hand and whipping out of my gargantuan purse within seconds. Just hope it’s not the soggy granola bar, the crayon decorated maxi pad, or the water bottle with a collection of spit. I’m saving those for stocking stuffers for my husband.

Which reminds me that I need to gather small gifts to hand out at the door in lieu of tips since I can’t find my wallet again and the delivery guy is really weirded out by our naked sun screaming at him while he pulls his bucket hat down to his chin. Note to self, buy more chocolate…