Chapter 27. In Which Our Heroine Remembers.

So the other day I said to myself "self, you should take the kids apple picking". And so I did. Except that I didn't get a chance to call Braeutigam's so I just decided to go to Eckerts. On a Sunday. With 4 kids. Alone. On a Sunday. In the fall. Alone. With 4 kids. So yeah, it was insanity. It was about the time we got to the line to get on the tractor that I remembered why I haven't done this in about 3 years. It's because Eckerts is the farm equivalent of Chuck E Cheese, especially on a beautiful fall weekend. I think it might cost more even. For the privilege of parking closer to home than the PYO tractors, waiting in line for 30+ minutes, riding a bumpy tractor with stinky people, picking apples while smelling the lovely smoggy air and listening to the country buzz of hordes of people, I got to pay more for apples than I would have at Whole Foods for the organic variety. Sigh. Oh well. So since we were already parked I figured we'd just eat at the restaurant instead of fast-fooding it. So it takes us literally 15 minutes to park the stroller and get situated, burst through the crowd that is standing around for no apparent reason blocking all of the sidewalks, to get inside the small restaurant lobby where I am informed, after standing there for 10 minutes, that I need to sign up OUTSIDE for seats. Uh-huh. Outside. WHERE outside because all I saw were people standing around for no reason holding pumpkins and apples. Oh, well, the sign up booth is down by the store, which is at LEAST 40 feet from the restaurant door. Which, if you ask me, is just about the least intelligent place to put something like that. By the time we move through the throngs of people I discover that it's about an hour and a half wait, even though the restaurant did not seem full. I'm then informed that they have several wait people going on a break and therefore it will take longer. Um, yeahno. Scratch that, scratch Eckerts altogether at this point. It's written here now in my blog to remind me in another 3 years why I haven't done this in a long time. NEXT time (IE: this weekend) we will just go to our favorite family-run, small farm where you actually ride on a cart being hauled by a tractor or the back of a pickup truck instead of the people movers that Eckerts calls tractors.

Chapter 28. In Which Our Heroine Remembers part doux.

So we found the car, piled in, and headed for food, of any variety, as long as it's not apples. I vetoed Applebees for that very reason. Sometimes it's all in a name, yk? Anyway, I'm driving around about half lost (that area has changed so much I wasn't sure exactly where I was, then I'd see a familiar landmark and be ok again) and discover Wendys. Now, you're probably wondering why I'm mildly excited about this. Well, Wendys closed it's doors in STL a year or so ago and is just now opening a smattering of stores in the area. None happen to be anywhere near home so I hadn't had a frosty in ages. I pull in, the kids seem excited too. It takes 3 minutes to get to a register, and then 20 to get our food. Then all hell breaks loose. The salad dressing that was supposed to be Ranch is something weird that Winnie won't eat. Unfortunately she's slathered it all over her salad and their solution at Wendy's? Buy a new salad. So she splits a burger with Zella who proclaims that this isn't the right kind of cheeseburger. Meanwhile I take a big heaping spoonful of chili and discover it's cold. I give up, go to get sweet tea and discover that the sweet tea is gone. I proceed to the counter where I stand for 10 more minutes and finally get tea. I choke down the cold, tasteless chili and suck the tea (which we're all sharing) dry. The kids are done with their expensive for how disgusting it was lunch and I offer Frosty's to try to salvage what's so far been a bust of a day. So I wait until the line diminishes (btw, this place is not busy AT ALL, just really snail-slow employees) and go to refill the tea and order junior frosty's all around (as well as an order of fries). The kids are misbehaving in line so I send them to stand near the door. They are incapable of standing still and I order Winnie to hand over her new friend Megan (an American Girl doll) to Finn so she can hold Oak (who is rampaging through the restaurant). I turn back toward the front of the line to glare at the employees and will them to speed up a bit when I hear a sharp intake of breath from behind me and the words "don't drop him". I turn to look at my precious children to find Winnie and Finn Squabbling over Megan and Oak. Oak is about to hit the floor face first and I abandon my place in line frustrated and annoyed. I tell the kids that Frosty's will have to be another day since they can't even stand still in line for 4 seconds and that if I can't keep them safe then we can't do fun things blah-blah-blah. So we leave without Frosty's and I am reminded why we quit going to Wendy's when we had it here. Apparently nothing has changed on the speed-of-service front.

So THEN I decide to take the kids to White Cottage, a local restaurant/ice cream parlor in that area. We drive literally 30 minutes to discover IT is closed altogether and an empty building is in it's place. Great. So we stop at Sonic for slushies instead.

We proceed on to the book store where I am desperate to purchase a planner and get freaked out by a freaky guy there. I'll tell that story later. They did not have the planners that say "sold exclusively at Borders" on the inside of the cover and the employees are baffled and offer nothing but "maybe we have them in back but I wouldn't know where". Thanks for being so helpful. So I leave defeated for the umpteenth time that day. Finally we get Neall and make it home in time to scarf McDonalds and get the children into bed.

Thank the goddess for down time with Mario Kart.