Gentlemen- start your engines

Nothing gives my family the same excitement as a good old fashioned grocery store race. Nothing.

Tonight- after a whole day home (trapped) with the kids- Dan was begging to get out of the house. He inquired about a trip to Ponderosa.

Ponderosa.

If you know me- then you know my severe dislike of buffets. I think I have blogged about this before. The 3000 trips to the bar with each kid- the 22 trips to the bathroom- the salad that I never get to eat because I am running the buffet marathon- and that is all in addition to the questionable picked over food.

Yeah, buffets and me don't go well together.

Instead, I presented my grocery list and suggested a grocery race instead.

They were all on board.

I tore said list into individual items, put them in a bucket, we divided into teams and drew out the items each team would be responsible for.

We entered the grocery, reviewed 'the rules' (no running, no splitting up, no pushing) and on the word GO, off we went.

This time my team was me and Emily- and we rocked it. So much so that I had time to read an article in a rag magazine at the checkout while we waited for Dan and his team to finish their lists.

In prior races, we have been literally running to beat each other to the check out.

It kind of sucked the fun right out of it that we smoked them so bad. But it did give us time to take back some of the incorrect stuff in his cart for the correct items (technically the lasagna noodles didn't say oven ready- they said no boiling required- he says I was trying to trick him).

Grocery races fill four basic purposes in my life:
1. I must plan the trip well and make a complete list
2. We are in and out of the grocery in like 12 minutes
3. There is no time for impulse shopping- so we save a ton of money
4. My children don't have time to fuss, complain and break things because we are moving at the speed of light

If your husband is grocery store challenged- the only tip I have for you is that you make a very very specific list for him (2 14.5 oz-ounce cans of whole tomatoes- something cheap but not questionable, 1 large container of sugar free hazelnut coffee mate coffee creamer, etc.) Otherwise- you will not get what you want.

Oh- one more tip- make your team members pee before leaving the house. Nothing can screw up your chances of a victory like a bathroom pit stop mid race.

And if you want to win- put the difficult stuff on his list. Throw in a can of sweetened condensed milk, parmesean cheese and velveeta and he'll be hunting till kingdom come (what is with the crazy organizing of a grocery store anyway?)

Not that I would do that or anything.