A trip to purchase condoms gets awkward for dad

When I was 13 or so I went to the drug store to buy some condoms.   A group of guys dared me to do it because I was the ‘craziest’ and ‘would do anything’.   I was nervous when I bought the condoms and forgot what we did with them afterwards.  I think I just peddled off on my Huffy, went to a friend’s house and read comic books in their tree house. 

Fast forward 30 years and I’m still nervous when I buy condoms.  I don’t have any reason to be nervous.   I’m a grown man and if anything the reason why I need condoms is usually with me in the form of two very active young boys.  Our gene pool will remain at two, the man surgery will happen, but until then we’re hanging out in prophylactic town.

I go shopping with one child in the buggy, while his older brother runs beside us touching every single product on the shelf.   It’s Smokey and the Bandit for the toddler set with the younger one channeling Cledus by shrieking at the top of his lungs or waving to anybody, while his older brother runs, just runs and touches everything.

On this particular trip we went down the condom isle.  The older brother raced ahead and went directly to the feminine hygiene products.  He promptly picked up two pink bottles, waved them at me as yelled, ‘daddy, do we need these?’  I don’t know what the products were, but they had natural sounding names and probably sponsored the final Lilith Fair Tour.

When he put one of the feminine products in the shopping buggy it was time for his younger brother to get in on the act.  He started waving and yelling at a very nice older lady who was approaching him.  “What a cute pair of boys you have”, she said.

“Why thank you, they are quite the handful”, I said as the older one was getting still more bottles of feminine product and putting them into the buggy.  I valiantly tried to carry on a conversation with this woman while removing anything lime, pink or yellow.  Just as my desperate conversation with this woman ended another woman came up and asked, “would your boys like to touch my puppy”?

Yup, this woman really had a puppy that she was training to be a service dog.  The 8 week old golden retriever puppy offered just the distraction needed in order for the feminine products to stop.   The woman was very kind and held the puppy for Cledus to yell at and pet, while his older brother stopped being a merchandiser’s worst nightmare for just a minute.

When the magical puppy and his caretaker left I gave the condoms a quick scan, found the box and put it under some groceries.

Approaching the checkout I looked for who I thought would be the most condom friendly check out person. My checkout reconnaissance was futile as they wanted to chat and the boys were being cute.  To my surprise she didn’t stop and gawk when the condoms rang up.  She just put them in the bag with the cantaloupe, milk and taco shells.

One of the items purchased was a one pound package of frozen peas, which I understand will be needed when the man surgery happens. Thankfully that will then eliminate the need to go down that isle, unless there is a service dog for the boys to look at.