Instructions for My Husband: At the end of a long day when the kids are sick is not the optimal time to go shopping at Radio Shack

When the kids are sick, and I'm home alone with them, you should come directly home after work. As the saying goes, Do Not Pass Go, or in your case, Do Not Go to Radio Shack.

This advice is particularly applicable when one of the sick kids is puking. Repeatedly. On me. And the other sick kid is snotting repeatedly. On me.


Let me set the scene: I'm home with sick kids, puked on laundry and carpet, boogery tissues and snotted on clothes, and I call you to see when you'll be home and you answer helpfully in an upbeat tone "around half-an-hour, I'm getting a new phone right now at Radio Shack."

This takes place at 5 o'clock. You get home at 5:30pm. Many of you reading this may be thinking, what's the big deal, it's only 30 minutes. And now your husband has the phone he wanted!
But you would be wrong. In those 30 minutes I had to feed the snotty one, while explaining to the pukey one that she couldn't eat the dinner, she could only have jello and Popsicles, while simultaneously trying to convince the snotty one to eat some real food, not just the pukey one's food.

And remember, this delightful dinner is taking place after a day of snot and puke and general toddler sickness and ickiness of one kind and another. Which, and I know this will come as a surprise, is actually not nearly as fun as it sounds.

Radio Shack is two blocks from our apartment. Two measly blocks. They are open at 8am. They stay open until 10pm. Was there really no other time you could find to go? The day when I was home by myself with two sick kids and their tears, whines and various bodily excretions,  going today at 5 o'clock was the absolute best time you could come up with?

So, please, let me help you - today at 5pm was not a good time to go to Radio Shack. Go any time in the middle of the day this weekend. Go any night after the kids are asleep. Or even go at 5pm, on any of the many other days when one of them isn't throwing up. Repeatedly. On me.

This is a post I started back in December, 2007. Thanks go NaBloPoMo, I finished it today. I'm still sorta annoyed, which is surprising because I am totally not one to hold a grudge. At all.

This is the twenty-sixth instruction in my ongoing series of Instructions for My Husband.

Does your husband ever pick the absolute worst time to go run an errand while you're at home with the offspring?