My Fan Club

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Joys R Puss

I need to vent a little. I was going to share some of my resolutions with you, but I guess that will have to wait until tomorrow.

Today's post is totally dedicated to a certain toy store that for this post we will call Joys R Puss. My kids each received $20 gift cards from JRP from my husband's work during the annual kids party.

After much finagling, and after losing one gift card for more than 48 hours, we convinced the kids to wait till after Christmas to spend their dough.

Today was the big day. The long awaited trip to Joys R Puss. Three kids 9 and under. It's like taking an alcoholic to the liquor store and saying just pick one small thing.

We were there not even five minutes when everyone, including me, realized that we had to pee. So we all went to the bathroom and we found the dreaded AUTOMATIC TOILET. Nothing strikes fear in my toilet-trained children more than the automatic toilet.

I have dreams that include meeting the inventor of the automatic toilet and forcing him/her to take my children to the bathroom. Seriously.

My oldest and my youngest took turns covering the sensor so they could go to the bathroom. My middle daughter, who is by far our most stubborn child, was absolutely terrified and continued to refuse to go to the bathroom.

I was forced to use the dreaded ultimatum.."Either you go while I hold this sensor or we all leave and come back some other time to use our gift cards. Your decision."

Well you can guess what happened and we were finally free from the bathroom. Total time: 25 minutes. No kidding.

Next it was off to the baby doll isle, which is middle daughter's addiction. I told her to pick something other than a doll because for Christmas she received five new members of her ever growing doll family. She could not decide. Total time: 15 minutes.

My son now informs me that he has to go to the bathroom again...No. 2. No kidding.

Total additional time in the bathroom: 15 minutes.

Now we are headed to the Nerf gun section. My son is looking for a gun "Not hard to shoot."
On the way to the Nerf guns, youngest sees a motorized jeep and decides he's going to get that instead of a gun. Not a remote controlled jeep. The big one, that you ride in your yard. He proceeds to have a melt down when I tell him it cost $500 and that he only has $20. "It's not fair, all the boys toys cost $500 and the girls toys are only $20. I hate girls."

He caves and decides he wants a "Nerf-like" dart gun nearly the same size as him with "rapid fire action". None of these words sound good to me, but I've already been in the store for over an hour and really just want to leave.

Oldest wants a DS game. Joys R Puss is having a sale on DS games and apparently you needed to be there when they opened to find any. After, trying to barter an additional $10 out of me for more than 20 minutes, Oldest finally found a $19.99 detective game. The same game I tried to show her 19 1/2 minutes ago.

The electronics department has it's own cashiers so we have to check out the DS game there, but they won't ring up the gun. I have to put $1 something on my debit card.

Now it's back to the baby doll section. UGH. After unsuccessfully finding a doll with hair that you can take in the tub that is not a Barbie, Polly Pockets came to the rescue!

Mommy is now skipping towards the check out. Total time at Joys R Puss: 1 hour 40 minutes. Most of which was spent in the bathroom.

After all of that we returned home to find out that son's gun doesn't work. Are you kidding me? Am I being punked? No it really doesn't work.

Thankfully, dear husband agreed to take it back to the store and to help youngest pick out something else, cause I was about to lose it.

Number one New Year's resolution: To avoid purchasing anything from Joys R Puss for the remainder of my life.

4 random thoughts:

MaryNSC said...

WELLLL U know what I thought I was having a Bad Day!! U made me laff till I cried.. I know it aint FUNNNY But I sorry It made me LAff all OVER.. U need to write this to Readers Digest.. OMG this was FUNNY!!! I sorry about the dart gun tho.. HEHEHHE what was the DS game like.. I got a DS from Santa too..:O)
PS
I would Love to do what U want to it sounds like FUN just tell me what U wants me to do.. U REALLLLY NEDED to send this STORY to READERS DIGEST!!!!
HAPPPY NEEW YEAR!!!
Only 3 1/2 more hours

Enfys said...

Thanks for the (belly) laugh. Your account took me right back to the days when we had the dreaded redeeming of gift vouchers, only in our case it was always WH Smith - I think all the aunts and grannies thought that if they gave vouchers for a bookstore that the children would suddenly become super intelligent and grow up to be something they could boast about like a doctor (my mother would have so loved a doctor in the family, she never forgave me for marrying an accountant).
hugs
Enfys xx

kimberslds said...

Oh my gosh, I just loved your story. You made me laugh until I had to pee. (only 1 minute in the bathroom though!) Glad my DD is past the Joys R Puss stage. I had the same problem with her & the baby dolls too. Really brought back memories. Thanks for the wonderful story!!

Shannon said...

I really try not to go there if I can at all help it. I have three kids as well. A DD 12, a S 5 and another S 4. I would seriously rather have a root canal than take them all three to Joys R Puss! I did it once and it took me three days and a half bottle of Valium to recuperate! JK (If I HAD any Valium, I WOULD have taken half the bottle! LOL)

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

About Me

My Photo
kisatrtle
I'm a 41 year old (gasp) freelance writer, school cafeteria manager, wife and mother. I have three children and one anxious and overweight beagle. I use my blog to make others laugh, to share some cool crafts, to document my lunchlady adventures and to lament about the challenges faced by us all on the journey called life. Thanks for visiting. Please leave some crack...um...I meant some comments.
View my complete profile