Shopping Fiasco :(

I learned a hard lesson today. Even if you try your hardest and have only 4 things to get at Wal-Mart, a trip to Wal-Mart by yourself with 3 kids is doomed from the word "go." I always know that if I try to go grocery shopping by myself with all the kids it is going to take 2-3 hours, but never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that it would take over 2 hours to get 2/3 prescriptions filled and buy butter, toothpaste and stamps, especially when all three prescriptions had been called in to be filled over 7 hours before leaving the house.

I had been doing good today. I got baths done for all the kids, the last load of laundry was in the washer, everything that had gotten dry before then was folded and on my bed ready to be put away, all the trash was out at the curb, the animals were fed, the cat box scooped and I even fed the girls their solids at 5:15pm instead of our normal 6pm. We were in the car and headed down the road by 5:20pm and we were going to spend what I hoped to be less than 30 mins in Wal-Mart, pick-up 3 prescriptions, buy 3 things and come home to continue our productive day. Boy was I wrong :(. When I got to Wal-Mart I went directly to the pharmacy to get it out of the way first and got in a line that was about 6 deep. After an hour, I finally made it to the front of the line and found out that they were only able to fill 2 of my 3 prescriptions today and I would have to come back tomorrow to get the third one. Then they told me that the prescription I had been told was $8 was $150 because the Dr prescribed tablets instead of capsules. I quickly rejected the capsules and they told me I had to get Dr permission to change the script to a different form of the same pill. Mind you, at this point it was around 6/6:15pm and of course the office was closed. So I called the hospital my OBGYN works for and had them page the OB on call. He called me back around 6:30 and said it was no problem to change, I just had to have the pharmacy call and have him paged and he would tell them it was ok. Needless to say after a few more speed bumps, we finally got the prescription changed and filled. Then I went to the regular check-out, only to discover that I had left my wallet at the pharmacy. The pharmacy cashier was headed to the door when I looked up and I was able to flag her down without losing my place in line. Luckily I had the $10 I needed to cover my purchase, because the scanner wouldn't read my card. At that point I realized it was going to be around 8:30 by the time I made it home and I caved and bought fast food for my son so that he could finally have some dinner (other than the chicken strip he munched on, since they were out of his favored popcorn chicken.)

So leasson learned. No matter how simple an errand may seem if it involves Wal-Mart, one adult, and 3 kids things will get complicated.

What is your worst shopping fiasco with your kids? Have you learned you lesson too?