The Checkout Guy, the Killer, and the Bad Mama

Yesterday I took the kids grocery shopping at Trader Joe's. They were acting like their normal, semi-whiny, semi-grumpy selves as we checked out.

The young cashier guy gives me a pitying look and says "So...would you do it again if you knew?", meaning, I assumed, if you knew what a pain in the butt they would be, would you still have kids?

I looked at him for a really long time, and then, because it's weird to just stand there and say nothing, I mumbled, "I...dunno...."

He looked shocked as heck. I'm sure that guy is rethinking his future as a parent now, ha!

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I love over-hearing people's conversations at my gym. When I go, it's usually the time when every retired person in my neighborhood is also there so I hear a lot of talk about aging, mortality, and creaky joints.

The other day I heard a guy confessing to murder. He first confessed to something small, and then, because he couldn't help himself, confessed to something much larger in his past.

His first confession was that his neighbor had an annoying plant that attracted annoying pests, so he went out at night and uprooted the plant. His conversation partner said - Well, I'm glad I'm not your neighbor!

This spurred the plant-murderer to boast of his greatest crime.

Well, that's nothing. When I was a kid, our neighbor planted a huge row of bushes that blocked off a lot of our view and sun. My dad was so pissed about it. So one night I went out and poured a salt mix all around the bushes. Killed them all in about a week!

I know this guy only murdered plants, but still. It's chilling to know I was doing lat pull-downs next to a true, bonafide sociopath of sorts.

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Today I had to go to Judah's parent-teacher night at his preschool. Noah was apparently really upset that I left the house for an hour. He looked for me, he cried a little, he clearly missed me.

When I was nursing and cuddling him to sleep he scolded me (that's a first!): Ba- mama! Ba- mama! (translation: Bad mama! Bad mama!)

And then he slapped me on my hand and said, spank spank! (which is what the Spouse does to him whenever he messes with the Spouse's book collection).

Noah did this 7 or 8 times.

What a presumptuous baby. Seriously. This kid is not afraid to speak truth to power!