You know you've hit the point when nothing phases you anymore when you can walk up to the customer.. [View All]

[HopeHoops]

... service counter at the grocery store and ask a pretty young woman in her early 20's for a mechanical baby doll diaper that was dropped by the eggs and yogurt.

It's sort of like that point where you no longer drive to another town to guy condoms.

Here's the deal: Our high school requires all 11th graders to spend a weekend with a mechanical baby doll. They have to wear an escape-proof wrist band to prove they're in close proximity at all times (although there is a baby sitting band that can be used for short periods like shower time). It comes with a bottle and two diapers. Everything is connected by some form of wireless communication and the baby simulates stuff babies do - sleeping, wanting to be fed, wanting to be rocked, needing a diaper change - but FORTUNATELY not actually ejecting fluids or solids from either end.

So we're in the grocery store back by the eggs and the baby makes the diaper change noise. Rather than going to the rest room to use the Koala changing table, my daughter decides to do an in-air diaper change. TA-DA. We get to the register and an old woman asks about the baby. She explains that it is a school project, for practice and the woman asks if she's pregnant. She explains that EVERYONE has to do it. I view it as a means of birth control - spending a week with it in the HOUSE makes me feel like hiding from sex.

The woman at the checkout graduated with my eldest daughter four years ago. She was talking to my youngest about how she lost one of the diapers on the bus on the way home - they give the kids the dolls on a Friday. In a panic, she called the teacher but there was just no way to shut the damn thing up so she stuffed it under a bunch of clothes in her closet.

So, we're about 3/4 of the way home (with frozens) and the baby starts bitching. Guess what - NO EXTRA DIAPER! As soon as we made it home, my wife and daughter worked on unloading the van while I called the store manager. As soon as he understood, he put me on hold and within 15 minutes he picked up and said he found it back by the eggs, right where I thought it might be. Damn that was fast, but then he was probably thinking, "E-GADS! There's what looks like a dirty diaper on the floor by the eggs! What will the customers think?!?!?"

So I drive back, there's the aforementioned pretty young woman at the counter everywhere and I ask for a baby doll diaper. She retrieved it and I walked out. Like what the hell else is there to do? Sigh.