Adventures at Verizon Wireless

So I am going to preface this story with them following....Over the past year Travis has had 4 refurbished/new phones because he some how manages to run them over with his golf cart. Most people can go their whole lives without running anything over with a golf cart. My husband managed to break 4 phones in one year with one. That my friends takes talent. So, being the wise and independently wealthy family that we are (sarcasm font needed) we decided that we should both go to the Verizon store and upgrade to the New and High Speed Droid phone! Dun dun dun! In our defense they were having a buy one get one free deal going on. So we make it a family outing and bring The Mad with us as well. Being the smart parents that we are we also go around 6pm which is only an hour from her bedtime. But hey...we all know that tired children are happy children...right??

So about 15 minutes into our adventure at Verizon Madeline decides she no longer wants to be held and wants to get down and crawl around. Cool, it's better than crying. So away she goes to every display in the store and proceeds to rip every item off the hanging display hooks. Being the good mother I am I follow behind her and replace the items once she has moved on to a new display. I jokingly say to the sales woman "don't worry, we will have your whole store destroyed by the time we leave." To which the sales woman replies "can you please try and keep her from pulling things down, we are in the middle of having an inspection and we lose points for that." Ok....so I pick The Mad up and she instantly earns her nickname by screaming at the top of her lungs. She bends herself in half like a taco shells and turns bright red from screaming. So I put her back down thinking that will atleast subdue the screaming. WRONG! She then throws herself on the floor and literally does the stereotypical "kicking and screaming" child routine. Arms and legs are flying through the air and her face has now turned a shade of purple. Like every other good parent Trav and I take one look at our charming daughter and bust out laughing. We are both doubled over laughing at our child throwing a temper tantrum in the middle of the Verizon store. Did I mention they are having this huge promotion going on and an inspection? That means there are probably close to a dozen people in the store at that time watching our child have "a moment" on the floor.

After about 30 seconds of laughing on our part, and kicking and screaming on her part I pick her up and tell her that is unacceptable. She obviously stops crying and behaves like a little lady going forward. Oh...WRONG AGAIN! The screaming stops but the crying continues. I pass her to her father who has been a huge help up until now and tell him he is in charge of The Mad One. While this is going on the Sales Rep suddenly gets a burst of energy and is able to process our new phones in record time!

Travis, now in charge of the kid, tries to give her away to anyone walking in or out of the store. So Just to recap our parenting technique...
1. We take a tired child to get new cell phones which everyone knows takes an entire day to accomplish. We might as well have taken her to purchase a new car.
2. We let her destroy the store in the middle of a very High Level Inspection and get reprimanded by the staff.
3. We laugh out loud and obnoxiously when our child throws herself on the floor and throws a grand mal temper tantrum in front a dozen witnesses.
4. My husband then tries to give our child away to anyone coming in or out of the store.

Our very willing to please Sales Rep processes our phones in World Record time and we high tail it out of Verizon before anyone can call child protective services. The minute we get out the door the screaming stops and Madeline starts smiling and laughing. She gives us both a look like..."Hey can we do that again?"

Stay tuned for more Adventures :) .....Erin