For Jennifer Tippets, here are the never before seen details of our trip to Target, as you requested.
As I said before, that evening brought the greatest trip to Target ever! It has been a long time since I have laughed that hard for that long. On the drive over I demonstrated the jerky driving I had recently experienced when catching a ride with someone. It involved bursts of acceleration rather then maintaining a smooth, steady rate of speed. Let the giggles begin.
Allie and I just went to Target to walk and talk for a bit after dinner. We stopped to look at the new display of Christmas CD's. Allie was giving me a hard time because every time I touched one of the CD's the whole rack would shake. She claimed I was using excessive force. To show her, I gave the whole wobbly display a shake and next thing I knew CDs were raining down on us. We both laughed uncontrollably as she tried to catch them all. The woman at the next end cap over, hid her face behind the item she was looking at to conceal her laughter as she asked "Do you ladies need some help?"
I let Allie pick up the CD's from the floor. No need for both of us to be crawling around on the floor. She commented that people were probably enjoying seeing her bum sticking out. "I like looking at you bum" I responded so she turned it towards me. I grabbed both cheeks, she popped up in surprise, and turned around to see a man in his 50s walking by, staring at us as he quickened his steps. He turned the next corner as Allie and I laughed harder. Once we cleaned up the CDs we moved on to look at the christmas decorations. When we came to this display, Allie quoted one of her nephew's responses to these ornaments "Look at those big balls!"
We laughed and then I told her to pose with them so I could take her picture. As she reached her hands up, we were surprised to hear someone call her name. We confusedly looked around as the woman down the isle said "Allie, that's enough. Come on." She looked at us warily as we stared and her and laughed. The woman was talking to her daughter, also named Allie. We explained, through our giggles, the shared name, and thus the confusion. She looked amused as we marveled over how unnerving it was to hear someone call Allie's name. Allie posed again as I took her picture. We dissolved into giggles again as the woman called out "Allie don't touch those," this time she was talking to us. Well played, woman in Target. Well played.
Allie and I finished up at Target and went to Starbucks to have some Salted Carmel Hot Chocolate. That stuff is amazing! It is a seasonal drink and Starbucks didn't have it last winter. We ordered our drinks and settled into the plush chairs to continue our giggling. It was a slow night so the employees were tidying up. The barista was sweeping the floor around us so we both naturally picked up our feet so he could sweep under them. He said he was going to wait to do the area under our feet but since we had our feet up he might as well. "Almost, almost, not yet..." he teased as he made us sit there with our feet sticking straight out. Allie and I laughed and we all talked about what a good ab workout it was. We were finished with our drinks and were about to leave when Allie decided she needed to use the restroom. The afore mentioned barista asked her, as she was walking by, if she needed some water. She confusedly brushed him off and went to do her business. He turned to me and said "Water, because..." and he rubbed his belly. My first thought was "Are you saying she's fat?" then I realized he was referring to our "workout".
We decided to finish the night in our happy place. We went to Target (not the same one as earlier) to take pictures to document the hilarity of the evening. We walked around, looking for the Christmas CD display. We stopped an employee and asked her where the Christmas CDs were. She told us they weren't out yet. Allie complained that the other Target we were at had them out already. I'm sure the employee was wondering why we didn't just buy the CDs at the other Target.
We headed over to stationary, because they have a rack of misc. CDs there. I told Allie the plan was I would shake the rack and then take the picture as she tried to grab the falling CDs. She responded with "I'll shake it and you grab them!" which sent us into more giggles. We got to the CD rack and Allie ducked out of the way as I took the picture. "I'm not getting in that picture" she said. "Yes you are" I said as I grabbed some CDs off the rack and dropped them to the floor. Of course the Target employee walked past right then so Allie scrambled to pick the CDs up. By this point we were laughing so hard breathing was made difficult and the only way our pants were still dry is because we had recently voided our bladders.
The ride home once again included irregular, spastic driving, complete with bursts of acceleration. I'm glad we didn't get stopped on the drive home and asked to walk the yellow line. I don't think we would have been able to do it without falling over.
