Sunday, March 04, 2018

PRINGLES WERE ON SALE

Pringles were on sale.

Perhaps I should have written that sentence with a few exclamation marks. Let me try again.

PRINGLES WERE ON SALE!!!!

Ruby and Sadie came into do some grocery shopping with us completely uninspired by the idea of, in their minds, drudging around the store while we shopped. We got a cart, one that was hard to push, and the girls took turns pushing it, enjoying the challenge of just trying to get it to turn. We came up with a couple of games, 'Spot the ...' is a great game for finding stuff in a store. Find the diced tomatoes in this huge mess of canned tomatoes.

But things lit up when we went by a bin full of PRINGLES ON SALE. And apparently PRINGLES ARE THE VERY BEST KIND OF CHIP AND WE LOVE PRINGLES SOOOO MUCH. Sometimes children speak in ALL CAPS. So the deal was 2 for 4 dollars. They both love the Cheddar Cheese Pringles more than any other flavour and they could cope with the regular ones if they couldn't find the cheese. Then it began.

They tore into that bin pushing the tubes this way and that on a treasure hunt, for real, each of them burrowing into the bin. I sat back and enjoyed them enjoying the hunt. Some people came by and looked at me and then at the kids and of those some had sad smiles and shook their heads at my lack of concerns about two girls half buried in Pringles tins. But, me, I didn't care. They weren't loud. They weren't in the way. They weren't doing any harm. And they were having fun. And a lot of it.

When they came up for air they had found the one cheddar cheese tin in the bin and the one regular tin. Victory. They would have preferred two of the cheese, but this would do. Sadie and Joe headed off to get something and Ruby and I took the cart and turned to go down another aisle. It was then that Ruby noticed that there was a shelf full of nothing but cheddar cheese Pringles. Laughingly the swap was made.

I rolled along thinking of the looks I'd gotten for being lenient about their frantic search. (Again, big deal. It's a bin of Pringles.) I remembered Ruby telling her mom about being somewhere where the adults supervising were strict and took the fun out of things. She was bemoaning what happens to adults that makes them that way. Joe and I protested. She said, "Not you guys, you're not adults, you're ... you're ... you're really old kids."

We laughed a lot at the description.

And we decided that that's a pretty good way to be thought about.

Agree?

3 comments:

clairesmum said...

Yup....you are like grandparents. Kids need 2 parents....and at least 2 'grandparents' who usually can have looser limits and let a child experience the world without the adults taking all the fun out of it with too many rule and instructions and reminders. Clearly Ruby and Sadie trust both of you and love you.

You and Joe do sound like you are fun to hang out with and indulge in the playfulness that can found in ordinary life, when you look for it.

Unknown said...

Dave,

I have been following your blog regularly. It gives me motivation and helps me put an extra effort in pursuing my career as a service worker by committing my time in helping people with disabilities. I agree with your views you expressed in this blog about behaving as a child at any age as a child is the most innocent creature who enjoys every moment. We should sometimes be childlike and enjoy our lives without bothering about people's opinions and judgements.

In my opinion, people who do not respect and value others are the ones who have a serious disability. People who are not able to understand others' different abilities actually have "understanding disability". Education should aim at making people sensitive towards the needs of the people with vulnerabilities and when I say education, I mean formal, informal and non-formal. So, it is the community that needs to take the onus to create an environment in which everyone can thrive.

Thank You for being an inspiration to me.

Yesha

Unknown said...

Dave,

I agree with your views,its important to respect the rights of each individual.Everybody has the right to enjoy their life. Each individual enjoy their life in different ways, some people enjoy their life as a child so, we need to respect their values and choices. In my opinion, its the people who give restriction to enjoy life is the one who have disability. I think as a human being each individual has responsibility to promote other people to enjoy their life maximum.

Thank you for giving me such a good thought

Mariya