(No) Thank You, Easter Bunny

I did not get any Easter candy this year. More specifically, I did not remember to go out and buy myself Cadbury Eggs. Oh how I enjoy a good Cadbury Egg! A 4-pack of those & about a half gallon of milk & I'm anybody's. Yet, somehow this year I was so focused on losing the last four pounds of baby weight that I totally blew off that bok-bok-ing bunny. Truth be told, Easter morning I would have settled for any kind of chocolate. Isn't that our Traditional Christian Breakfast on the Holy Day? 'Course I haven't been to church in awhile. And I'm a Methodist, so I don't even know if that counts, really.

I realize I'm almost 34 years old, but--perhaps selfishly, unrealistically--I had hoped that my mother-in-law or other relative, in their blind unthinking love for my son, would put a little chocolate of some sort in his Easter basket. No such luck. Grandma Lee got Lucas a respectable robin's-egg-blue plastic easter basket containing a cute little stuffed bunny and a package of Peeps for my husband. My parents didn't even get Lucas--their first and only grandchild mind you, who is named in part after my father--a basket at all. This not only cheated me of eating the baby's chocolate, but also of tsking them for buying candy for a 10-month-old who isn't even allowed fruit juice. But I digress.

So early Monday morning, as soon as Lucas was up and decent, we set out in search of clearance Cadbury Eggs. Surely somebody had some left? First stop, the Hy-Vee grocery store nearest our house. Nothing. Next we tried Walgreen's. No luck. Then we stopped at Home Depot (no eggs there, but their pansies were lovely). Finally, out of desperation, and as the shot clock was winding down to the baby's nap time, it hit me. What about Wal-Mart? It was right there next to Home Depot afterall. Surely if anyone had leftover Eggs, it would be the Big W.

Now those of you who know me well understand immediately the desperate state of my psyche that I would even suggest a trip to Wal-Mart, let alone follow through on the threat. I freaking hate Wal-Mart. I hate what they stand for and all that they represent. And okay, fine, I resent that often they DO have the Lowest Prices Everyday. But on this day, even Wal-Mart didn't have what I was looking for. I did, however, find a Solid Milk Chocolate Cadbury Bunny for 50% off, which I immediately decided to purchase and consume in the name of self-medication.

After coughing up $1.96 in bunny ransom I pushed our cart--baby, bunny, and all--toward the nearest exit. As we neared the freedom of the automatic doors, a security sensor sounded repeatedly alerting the small elderly greeter person who immediately scurried over to see what was in my sack. She was a compact woman with tight curls of artificially dark hair and little dark-rimmed glasses that she wore on a chain around her neck.
"Do you have any electronics?" she asked, putting on her glasses to peer curiously into my plastic bag.
"I...have a chocolate bunny?" I offered. And then I said what all good thieves say as they steal expensive computer books from Barnes & Noble, "And my cell phone, of course." I don't know what posessed me to say this. While it's true that I did have my cell phone, I don't know what, if anything, that has to do with setting off Wal-Mart's security sensors. But I felt like I had to say something, and this, apparently, was good enough for her.
"Ohh," she said decidedly, raising a single, gnarled finger into the air as she shuffled back to her post, nodding, "That's probably what it is."
"Okay," I said, "Have a good one."
And just like that (poof) we were gone.