The Ritter Troop

I did it. I lost Logan. At Walmart of all places. How about that? But, let me tell you why I was at Walmart in the first place wandering around fairly aimlessly. This morning we loaded up into the car in order to go get the oil changed, and take advantage of both deals: early bird special, and free car wash. I headed first to the gas station to fill up, and also I wanted to check my tires because my steering wheel was shaking terribly and the car was pulling to the right. Uh, yeah my passenger side front tire was incredibly low. Pretty much fairly flat. Curses. I contemplate that Walmart is just a few blocks away and call Jim for confirmation on my plan of attack: fill tire with air and haul it to Walmart for them to fix it. Who wants to put on a spare while their two year old waits in the car? I don't. So, that is what we do and all is well. The tire is still full when we reach Walmart. So, we opt for a flat fix and a tire rotation/balance. Then we head inside Walmart to kill an indefinite amount of time. We killed a lot looking at, what else? Thomas the train toys. But a mom can only take so much of that. We tried to find fish to look at, but of course they don't have any at this store. So, we wander down the Halloween aisles. For about 10 minutes Logan and I play a hiding game. He hides sitting on a shelf at the end of the aisle and I pop around to surprise him. 10 minutes. I should have known this would have gotten old by then. In the time of about one split second Logan was gone. Vanished. Disappeared. I had the feeling it wasn't a Halloween trick either. So I started calling for him and running down the aisle without an answer from him. Knowing that despite anything else, Walmart has one of the best protocols for lost children (wonder why...) I alert an employee who immediately gets on his radio and sends out a description of Logan. I knew that they could search more efficiently and I didn't really want to leave the aisle we were around just in case Logan came back. Well, yeah, they found him. Within like one minute. Maybe two. But it seemed like A MILLION GAZILLION. Where was he? You probably only need one guess after I tell you that the Halloween stuff is only like 1-2 aisles over from the start of the toys. Yes, that is right. Logan was about 5-7 aisles down and 1 aisle over looking at Thomas the train toys. He didn't care I wasn't there. He even knew how to get there. An employee carried him back to me and Logan was just giggling and giggling knowing he did something wrong and wasn't supposed to go look more at Thomas. Just like many emergency situations I wasn't really worried or stressed when he was actually missing, but when we found him I had to keep from crying. And shaking him like mad too. Do you hug them or spank them, or a little of both? Well, it was partially, even mostly, my fault anyway so I didn't spank him but we agreed on a holding hands rule served with a stern lecture, and followed by lots of hugs and kisses. Then followed by more Walmart wandering.

And then they couldn't even find a leak in my tire!!!! What?!?! I spent over an hour wandering Walmart and you couldn't even find the leak that made my tire flat? Sheesh. But it doesn't shake or pull now, and we even still made it to the oil change and car wash places. And I even replaced my spark plugs today, myself. Go me!

Of course, I will have to keep an eye on that questionable tire.