Confusing? Not anymore. I know this map better than I know my own job.

I think I speak for all men when I say running errands SUCK.  It sucks because men and women shop SOOOOO differently.  My wife is always amazed that I knew all the short-cuts through IKEA after only being there twice.  Are you freaking kidding me?!  The first time I was there I was in DEEP reconnaissance mode, every time she would stop to “browse” I had that map out and was studying it like a high schooler studies a porno.  I had to know the quickest way in, through, and out of this beast since it was clear that Jesy liked a lot of what she saw there.

Is there anything more awful than having to give up a day of the weekend watching her outlet hop?  Any yard work starts to look appealing.  It’s painful and normally wives tend to give up even asking because most of us men are just miserable bastards the entire time they are out anyway.  Jesy and I actually have a pretty good system worked out so that I do work at home while she is out and then she will do work around the house while I’m out for the ten seconds it takes me to run my errands.

But because of several circumstances we had to run errands….together…..all day on Saturday.  Jesy is very pregnant, so she just can’t run around like she used to, also she can’t lift a lot of the things that we would have to return or buy.  Would we make it?  Would I be able to last all day running errands and primarily shopping all day?  Would an 8 month pregnant woman be able to handle my antics when I get bored after she is on her feet all day?  Would things go smoothly, or become unhinged?  Would the world of retail buffoonery be our undoing?  Well spoiler alert, we did both make it home alive.  Let’s see how we did it.

8:30 am.

Stop #1:  Dr.’s Office

• The Doctor was 30 minutes late due to some scheduling snafu.  That is not a very encouraging sign at all.  These are professionals, you would expect better.  These are people that we are entrusting with our child’s health, can we at least get the time of the meeting correct?  But after saying that, I must admit that the Doctor that we did meet with was pretty awesome.  She has kids of her own and they are pretty young, so she clearly knows the quirks of raising children.   And she happens to be in the office the day that Jesy will be working from home.  So I think we found our Pediatrician.  I don’t want to give her name out on here after bashing whoever does the scheduling there, but if you would like to know please email me, she really was great.

• Prognosis:  Not the greatest start to the day, but after finally talking to the Dr. I felt a lot better.

• Energy level:  7, still warming up, and a minor set back that slowed me down.

This is just the car seat and stroller section! The store can be a bit overwhelming! Oh God, I'm getting flashbacks!

• We still needed a stroller, a car seat, a pack and play, a diaper pail and a pad for the changing table.  Those were the big items, so we decided to return doubles or triples and try to bank up as much as we could and use any gift certificates that we got along with some coups to try to get the best bang for our buck.  The returns went pretty smoothly and since we had really already picked out what we wanted it was just a matter of going through and collecting it all.  Running through the store like we had won a shopping spree.  In all fairness, Jesy was really focused, she really stuck to the game plan and only got side tracked by shiny objects a couple of times.  But then disaster struck.  We got to the register and started having the lady check us out when Jesy suddenly realized that the coupons were at home.  NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!  We were going to make it, despite having to actually shop this time I was feeling pretty good.  But now we had to backtrack.  We would have to return home, which meant we had to take out the dogs.  Turd.  But I shook it off, amazingly.

• Pulse:  A real mixed bag here.  Felt pretty good about the quickness of the store adventure and line quickness, but ultimately destroyed when Jesy somehow managed to forget the coups.

• Energy level:  10-6.5, A huge drop off, but not near danger level yet thankfully.  A strong start to the day really helped power through this little detour.

Stop #5:  Home

• I wasn’t seething on the way home, but I wasn’t thrilled either. For once I really wanted to try to keep it positive so I tried my best to just get over it.  We returned home quickly and let the dogs out for good measure and then began our trip back to BuyBuy Baby.

• Feeling:  Getting better, did my “woosa” and got over it.

• Energy level:  7.5, yelling at Carson randomly made me feel better.

Stop #6:  The Return of BuyBuy Baby

• Luckily the people at BuyBuy Baby were nice enough to hold our cart off to the side since we promised that we would be right back.  They did, but we hit another snag with the coupons.  HEADS UP BUYBUY BABY REGISTERS:  Turns out that the 10% you get off after your showers are over is a one time deal.  And you can’t use it with coupons, so you could get 10% off your entire order that one time.  But the weird thing is that they will  let you stack any other coupons as much as you want.  So we got the car seat (Thanks Molly and Terry!), the pack and play, the diaper pail and the changing pad with stacking coupons and decided that we will save the 10% off and use it when we get our stroller.  But the best part of this whole thing is that because of the coups, the returns and the gift cards, we didn’t spend a dime!

• Heart beat:  Racing!  A lot of upper and downers, this must be what it’s like to be Courtney Love.  But ultimately this was a huge win.  I mean we spent like $400 at BuyBuy Baby but really spent nothing, it was AWESOME  despite having to return home, I mean it was worth it for essentially free right?!

• Energy level:  9, back on top after wheeling, dealing and swindling!  And as a bonus we still have money left on gift cards.  Technically 6 stops in now and we are still $25 in the black!  At this point I’m afraid to talk to Jesy in the car.  It’s like talking to a pitcher during a no-hitter, after a certain point you just don’t do it.

Stop#7:  Kroger

• Had to get some chili fixings for what turned out to be the 2nd best chili at this years annual Wenstrup Family and Friends Chili Cook-off.  Grocery shopping is the worst of all the shopping I think, so this again had potential to really weigh down my energy level.  It didn’t help that I had to start this pit stop off with a flu shot at the Little Clinic.  Last year that little shot made me sick, so I was afraid it would do it again this year(so far, so good by the way).  Luckily, everything I needed was really in like two isles, so there wasn’t a whole lot of navigating or exploring or waiting in line.  Another potential disaster avoided.

• Receipt:  Not too bad.  Got everything I needed for chili and we are still in the black by $4!  So we are now 7 stops in and we have made $4, to me that is incredible.

• Energy level:  8, still feeling pretty good, but back to back stops that involved a lot of walking and actual shopping and heavy participation on my part has me waning just a bit.

Stop #8:  Kroger Gas

• A necessary evil, but for the first time we are going into the red.  $50 in gas later and we are now $46 in the hole.

• Total:  It had to be done, but it sure was sad to see the streak end.  It does help that I got $.5o off though.

• Energy level:  7.5, Not feeling good about having to lose all that money at once.

Sop #9:   Smoothielicious

• Got a smoothie and a chicken salad wrap for $7.  Both were delicious and we got to catch up with Chris who is normally working when we stop in.  A great choice for a quick stop for lunch.

• Checkout:  More money going out, but again it had to happen since we needed to eat at some point.  And seven bucks is a pretty good price for two people any more.  So now we are $53 in the hole for the day.  Still not bad at all.

• Energy level:  8, a good lunch helps revive me a little for the second half push.

Stop # 10:  Target

•  More returns and shopping, thank God we just had lunch because there is no way I would have survived three legit shopping trips in a row.  My head would have exploded.  But over all another pretty painless trip.  Picked up about $50 of more baby loot, but again didn’t have to pay anything out-of-pocket because of the returns and gift cards.  Sweet!  The only problem we encountered was when I was walking the shopping cart to a corral, Jesy inexplicably decided to just hang out in front of a Prius trying to pull out of the parking spot.  Her excuse was the car’s engine was so quiet she never heard it as she was checking her phone.  Yeah, she was that lady.

• Basket:  We finally quit hemorrhaging money which was nice.  Jesy almost got run over which was bad.  Shopping trip was pretty painless, so just a pretty mediocre stop.

• Energy level:   7.5, nothing too exciting but the day is going to start dragging soon, I can feel it coming.

Stop # 11:  Everybody’s Records

• This was a selfish request for me.  It was part of my good behavior treat.  So, we took a slight detour out to Pleasant Ridge to my favorite record store.  Jesy took a nap in the car while I shopped.  I have a small list of old records that I would like to pick up, sadly I couldn’t find any of them.  So win/lose.  I spent no money and Jesy got a nap, but I didn’t find any records that I was looking for.

• Fin:  Kind of a let down, was looking forward to my one requested stop having a little treasure to shut me up the rest of the day and they failed to come through for me.  Suck.

• Energy level:  What I was hoping to give me a little boost sadly dropped me a little to 7.0.

Stop # 12:  Kenwood Mall

Yup, it was time to put on the adult diapers and take a nap. Hope I didn't have corn last night.

• The last stop of the day and it was my turn for a nap.  These were all Jesy stops that I was not even remotely needed for and I was ready to call it a day for certain.  Jesy hit up Lenscrafters and got her glasses adjusted…for free.  Nicely done dear.  Now she will stop cursing because they won’t be sliding off her face.  Then she went to Build-A-Bear to get a recorder to record Abbey’s heart beat on Thursday at our next ultrasound.  That set us back a perfectly acceptable $8 taking our total to $61 spent in real money.  Next she went to Sephora to get makeup.  A whopping $27!  The only other time we spent more real money at one time today was when we put gas in the car that was virtually empty.  Better be the best makeup ever….just saying.  We are now $86 in the hole for the day, at least we didn’t break $100!

• Trip Conclusion:  I got a much-needed nap, and when she got back I was out of it from napping, so I had no idea how much she spent until I started to write this, so I didn’t have that to be upset about.  I just knew we were headed home, so I was pretty happy!

• Energy level:  7.5, got a nice little nap and the end was in sight so there was reason to be pretty optimistic.

Arrive home at 4:30 pm

• 8 hours of errands.

• $86 spent, $7.16 per stop, not bad at all.

• 52.3 miles total trip

• We didn’t kill each other.  In fact it was a pretty good day despite a couple hiccups.

We managed to finish off most of the big items that we NEEDED on our registry and just get stuff done that needed to get done.  I know with a child on the way that my life won’t be slowing down for the next 20 some years, so it was good to get a trial run in like this to make sure my fragile mental state can handle it.

Next challenge will be the drive to the hospital!  Hopefully it won’t be during some rush hour, and so help me God if there is a wreck!