It's in a name

I've discovered that even though I live in the city, I am far from urban. How did I come to this conclusion? I looked at a flyer today and went to No Frills to buy the ribs that were on sale. I am officially a Mom. I'm only a heartbeat away from cutting coupons. I don't know if I'm ready to accept this harsh reality. Anyhow, let me tell you, No Frills lives up to its name; especially this one. See, not only was I at No Frills, I was at a No Frills in Scarborough.This particular No Frills really adheres to the whole "No Frill" philosophy when they're hiring staff. It's like it was a prerequisite for employment to no longer have even one of your original teeth. I felt like I had walked into a needle exchange program. Where do they find these women? Normally I enjoy grocery shopping. It's one of the few domestic chores that I genuinely enjoy. I usually go to Loblaws or Sobeys where the lighting isn't too harsh, the music plays gently over the speakers and the aisles are wide and inviting.The cashiers are pleasant or at least without a criminal record. I sound like I'm being a bit hard on this No Frills, but you should seriously go have a look at these cashiers. It's where cashiers go to die, I'm sure of it. The beast that was checking me out looked to be around 65-ish. She smiles at the baby and makes baby noises at him. I stand there awkwardly. I give my obligatory remark, "Oh, do you have children?"
"Yes", she answers, "but they're all grown up." I say, "Oh that's nice."
She responds, "One is 5 and the other is 7." Whaaaaa? Unless she had some incredible fertility treatments (which something tells me she hasn't) that means that you're probably only in your 40's. Smoke another cigarette lady, it's really working for you.
In other news, Dexter is 10 months old and beyond cute. Kissing and crawling and being hilarious. It's more work now, I mean you really have to keep an eye on him instead of an eye on him and an eye on the bottle of wine, which is what I've been doing up to this point. I like to make sure that the wine is always behaving itself. Anyhow, he puts EVERYTHING in his mouth so I've had to pick up all of the bread crumbs that I leave for myself so that I don't get lost.When we were in the Domincan Republic, Dex was crawling around the floor. I see him put something in his mouth and say, "Will, he's got something in his mouth, can you please take it out?" Will puts his hand in and pulls out..... a beetle. Gross! He put a freaking beetle in his mouth! I started to freak thinking he could have some weird Domincan beetle poisoning but that wasn't the case.
A couple of weeks ago I was in The Home Depot...cruisin' for dudes. This guy who works there came up and started cooing at the baby. He says to me, "You know, you have to be careful, babies put everything in their mouth." Thanks Dr.Spock.
"I have a 2 year old, and when he was this age, he picked up a razor blade and put it in his mouth. I had to very slowly extract it, using all of my concentration."
Holy shit! First things first, Dale from Home Depot, why the hell do you have razor blades lying around your floor? Did you just happen to lose one while you were shaving, running through the living room? Were you making a pinata and had butter fingers that day? If you have razor blades lying around the floor willy nilly, yes, willy nilly, you have bigger problems than I can deal with right now....in aisle 3 at Home Depot. Honestly, what a weird story to share with a complete stranger. Anyhow, my point is, your baby may put beetles, cat food or toilet paper in their mouth but don't ever feel bad. Dale's kids are one step away from getting decapitated by a circular saw.