Mangoland

"What about this one? Can we get this?"

"Ohh! Ohh! Can we get this? Please daddy? Puhleeeze?"

Grocery shopping with a small child is an educational experience. You learn very rapidly how little you really know about...well, all of the little things - like why shopping carts never drive straight, why are kiwi's hairy - you know, all the really key issues that make the world turn. At least for a five-year old.

Zachery and I hit the local grocery superstore last week to do the shopping. Zack and I shop relatively infrequently as generally his mother insists on doing the grocery shopping herself (due to my complete inability to buy things on sale). Zack typically regards shopping as a very low activity on his personal totem pole, so he avoids it by refusing to go and ends up spending the afternoon playing with his home entertainment center (i.e. Dad). On those rare occasions that the two of us darken the store's door together, it is always amusing.

One of the things that I like most about Zack is he is generally unafraid to ask questions and, whenever we are out and about, tends to do so almost constantly. As we strolled through the produce aisles, Zack was pointing at various unrecognizable fruits and vegetables. This particular store seemed to be on an exotic fruit trip and was piled high with things that Zachery hadn't yet sunk his teeth into. After loading up a bag of Golden Delicious apples (with Zack carefully inspecting each individual fruit for bruises or abberations before putting them in the bag - a process rendered immediately moot by him then dropping the bag on the floor and then chaotically tossing the whole sack into the shopping cart with a fruit-smashing heave...) Zachery spotted a strange looking purpleish-yellow fruit.

"What's this fruit Daddy?" he hollered, loud enough to turn heads four aisles away.

"That's a mango Zack." I replied absently, checking out the mini-tomatos and trying to recall whether my wife liked the cherry tomatos or the grape tomatos and what, if any, was the difference as the damn things were all small anyway.

"Mang-go. Mang-go MANG-GO!" Zachery repeated. "Mango, mango, mango, mango mangomangomango!" He then dissolved in a fit of laughter. "Lets get some mangos Daddy." he said.

"Are you sure? You don't know if you like them yet."

"Let's get mangos! MANGOS! I love mangos." came the immediate reply.

I sighed and bagged one mango.

"More than one, please, we need lots of mangos! Get thirty!"

"If you like this one, and you eat this one, I'll buy you more mangos."

"But..."

"Eat this one first, then we can get more." I repeated firmly.

He finally agreed, with grudging reluctance, to the purchase on a single mango. Zack bagged it with a huge grin on his face.

The remainder of our shopping expedition was relatively tame, with Zachery insisting periodically that we pick up various items that caught his eye in passing. These included, variously, fruit roll-ups, a case of grape kool-ade in plastic drink pouches for his lunch, a pack of dried Thai noodles and a large jar of pickled jalapeno peppers. I passed on the Thai noodles and I reluctantly, with malicious thoughts stirring in my head that would probably get me locked up, avoided buying him the pickled peppers.

The next day we peeled and sliced up the mango. Zack looked into the bowl tentatively, picked up one small yellow fruit segment and took a miniscule bite.

"I don't like mangos." he announced calmly, setting his bowl aside. His mother (who does like mangos) then ate the remaining fruit. I just cocked an eyebrow at him and kept my mouth firmly shut...

Several days later, we stopped in to pick up some odds and ends. As we strolled through the produce aisle, Zack stopped and pointed. "Are those coconuts Daddy?" he asked innocently.

I mumbled something non-committal and, head down and gaze averted, kept on moving.

"Let's get some coconuts Daddy! Wait Daddy, wait...you missed the coconuts...! Where are you going? WE NEED COCONUTS!"

Comments are always welcome. You can reach me at dadchronicles(at)hotmail.com.