by Jude Coyle

Created on: November 19, 2011   Last Updated: November 22, 2011

I asked my son, Ed, to please help me with the holiday shopping recently. Thanksgiving was right around the corner and as of yet, I hadn't bought a turkey. 

Now mind you, Ed has ADHD, and his head isn't where it should be at times. He had plans that evening, and proved to be more focused on that than my shopping. His idea, and personally, I thought a good one, we each grabbed a shopping cart. "So, Mom, what should I get?" he asked.

I gave him a short list. "Oatmeal, sour cream, butter, mozzarella cheese, cream of potato soup."

"These items are scattered all over. You can't put me in the same part of the store?"

"Just go," I said. "I have a lot to do." I headed for the deli counter. I saw him next as the clerk finished wrapping my hard salami. "Did you get everything?" I asked.

"Sure. What's next?"

"Coffee, tea, Pepsi, and the biggest thing of eggs you can find. I think they sell them in two and a half dozen packages."

"You couldn't tell me before? I just left the dairy department."

"You'll survive. Go."

The next forty five minutes passed with me directing, and him complaining. I bought produce, meat and bread, while he chased down other items. 

Most stores in this area usually give fifty cents a pound off the bird if one buys about fifty dollars worth of groceries. I asked about it, and I was told that I would have to bring in a coupon from the sales paper. "Since when does any store require you to bring in a coupon on a Thanksgiving turkey?"

"I'm sorry," the clerk assured me. "But this is what they decided at corporate headquarters."

I had a twenty pound bird. Fifty cents would add up to a good ten dollars. "I've got two nearly full carts that I could leave here for you to put away so I can take advantage of the sale at the store across the street." Ten bucks in this economy is a lot of money. I was beginning to get worked up as I thought about where I could spend it.

A good look at the clerk's facial expression told me I wasn't the first customer to bring this up. She signaled me to calm down as she ran the bar code across the scanner, not once, but twice. The first time it didn't register, although the second time, she gave me the discount. By the time I paid for our purchases, Ed had emptied both carts and bagged everything.

"Mom," he said after loading the car, "You know how embarrassing you can be at times?"

"Fifty cents a pound adds up quickly. Especially on a big turkey."  I drove home, all the time thinking about

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