Psst! Hey, Bud... Want Some Pizza?

We actually got out of the house early yesterday morning (relatively speaking anyway). The kids and I went up to church for a committee meeting I thought was scheduled for 9:30am. It turned out that the meeting had been postponed until next Monday. So, since we were already out and had some time on our hands, I decided to head over to the mall to do some Christmas shopping.

Shopping with the kids is always an adventure, at least from their perspective. We went into Sears so they could climb on the riding mowers (they like to pretend to drive the tractors.... really, who doesn't?) while I ogled the snowblowers (despite our currently mild weather, I know Old Man Winter and his blanket of snow are just around the corner). Then I had to tear them away from the electronics department as they were mezmorized by a television the size of our van (or was it the kids who had to tear me away... this would just be so cool on a really, really big screen!).

We checked out the toy store and the many, many musical/talking/noisy/loud toys that I hope will not make their way under our tree this year (note to relatives: we appreciate quiet toys, or at least ones that have volume control or on/off switches).

We hit a few other stores before finally heading off to the food court for a bit of lunch. As we were finishing our highly nutritious meal (of burgers and chicken nuggets), we were interrupted by some guy carrying a large pizza box. He proceeded to open the box, revealing a single, greasy, lukewarm (at best) piece of pepperoni pizza. Then, to my utter amazement, he offered it to my kids!

Would you let your little ones eat something offered to them by a complete stranger? I didn't know this guy from Adam, and I wasn't going to eat his leftovers myself, let alone feed them to my children. And, if you wanted to offer something to some kids, wouldn't you ask their mom or dad first? I was sitting right there! Hello? Don't go handing my kids something to eat, mister, without checking with me first! Anyway, he was probably just trying to be nice and didn't want to waste the food, but still....

We finished up and headed back through the mall on the way to our van. The kids caught a glimpse of Santa (taking pictures with some other kids), and we carefully avoided the 10 foot tall talking teddy bear that my daughter has decided is just too scary. We didn't get any real shopping done, but the kids didn't seem to mind. As we were pulling out of the parking lot, they asked if we could come back tomorrow. Really, even without strange pizza-pushing men, I don't know if I want them to like the mall so much. Maybe tomorrow we'll go to the library instead - books good, shopping with Daddy's credit card bad. I wonder how long I can get away with that?