Help! I Suffer from ADOS!!

Help!!  Is there a Doctor in the house?  I  have ADOS.  For those of you who have never heard that before it stands for Attention Deficit… Oooo Shiny.  What exactly is this disorder?  It is terrible, debilitating and most often costly.  How so?

Imagine walking through your nearby Walmart, Dollar store, grocery store, Goodwill, Yard Sale or anyplace where currency is accepted. You have said a Mantra to yourself before entering said establishment, that goes something like this “I’ve come to get bread, milk, eggs, coffee and coffee cream, nothing else” You’ve repeated this about 30 times during the drive, since you forgot the list at home, it‘s up to your memory. You are confident that THIS TIME IT WILL WORK.

As you rush through the store hoping against all hope that you remember what you came for, all of a sudden realize you forgot to put toilet paper on your list! Oh my, can’t forget that! So you run down the aisle to find the much needed butt fodder, when you realize you need dish soap. Oh geez, you begin to wonder if you will ever get anything right!  How come you didn't insist your daughter go to the store for you?

Forgetting the list could happen to anyone at any time, but if you have an extra quarter in your pocket your ADOS will kick in. As you pass by the Home improvement section a mirror catches your eye. In it you will find an image of your face, or at least something that used to resemble what you remember yourself looking like.

Now you’re embarrassed because it looks as though you have caterpillars growing over your eyes. Dish soap forgotten, you rush to the Health and Beauty section to find the ‘do it yourself’ wax only to discover you can’t find it. Without thought you speak aloud “OMG!! I Cannot believe that these people here at Walmart (insert your favorite store here) would allow me to walk around with these things growing out of my face!!” It isn’t until there are 3 different women looking at you that you realized you spoke aloud. Sheepishly you look at them, pointing to the bushes above your eyes and mumble something unintelligible while turning your back.

Oooo, lookie there!! You spy a nifty little buzzer thingy. That looks cool! You read the package, it’s for shaving your eyebrows. Well, it certainly should be less painful than ripping slabs of stuck on wax off. There would be no more drips on the lashes that sparkle in the light when you blink. If you pull it off… the lashes go with it (you have learned the hard way). Shaving is way better than having your 21 daughter year old tackle you and pluck the hairs one by one while she is holding you down with her body.

So you toss that in the cart, you have just entered the ADOS zone… 

As your traveling much slower down the aisles now, you can feel the sense of comfort begin to wash over you. You need this, your eyebrows are hideous and they don’t carry wax anymore. All it needs is AAA batteries. Oooo batteries, so you run to the section where they keep the batteries. The package says you only need 1, well the clicker (TV remote) takes batteries, so you might as well buy the big package! As you saunter off to another section you begin to think of the clicker and putting in the batteries, that thought runs to the beside lamp. Oooo light bulbs!!

Now you’re off and running. On the way to the bulb section you catch a whiff of candles, Mmmmm the smell is heavenly. Well now we’re on a roll so we gotta stop and get some of those since the other ones got used. Oooo picture frames, yep I need some of those too have to hang up the pictures of the Grand babies.

You pass through the kitchen appliances just hoping that the ‘seal a meal’ is on sale because you can save tons of money freezing those extra goodies that might otherwise be thrown away. Oh well, it’s not on sale, but Oooo think of the money you could save!! Better get an extra box of those bags…

Oooo better get an extra skein of yarn so you can make some more of those dishcloths/mittens/scarves etc… that everyone loves. Upon looking up you realize that you are in the back of the store to get to the checkout you must pass everything else but there is still room in the cart for more!

Oooo, we need laundry soap! Yes, there is still ½ a bottle at home but you were planning on doing some serious cleaning which means lots of extra laundry, so better get some. Might as well get fabric softener and water softener too! Better get some of those dryer sheets just in case you forget to add the liquid softener. Oooo You need some of that smell good cleaner! The kind with the Febreeze in because with all the dogs, the house smells funny.

Dogs, dogs, dogs…. Oooo the cat needs litter! So now the rush is one to get to the pet department. Might as well get some dog and cat food while you’re here, they gotta eat too! Oooo, better get some of those chewy things for the dogs, the shoes can’t take any more damage. Oooo shoes, that’s what you were was going to buy! Just something to slip on your feet when you go out. Slip, Oooo slippers!! Geez, how could you forget those! Since you can only find 1 at home and you do have 2 feet…

The cart is starting to hit the over load by now and you still haven’t gotten milk! So off the grocery section you go. Milk, milk, milk… Oooo paper towels!

As you can see once the ADOS kicks in it’s pretty hard to stop! Getting thru the check out lines can be pretty daunting as well. Particularly if there are a lot of other shoppers, you have an opportunity to look in their baskets and see what else you may have missed in your shopping trip.

Then there are those displays of “As seen on TV” items! WOW!! You could really use an Snuggie, or maybe some of those ‘Green Bags’ to save all those fruits and veggies Oooo maybe a PedEgg your feet are pretty rough!

After paying entirely too much, yet happy that you have made some worthy purchases, you head out the door to load your supplies in the car.

You turn up the radio and sing along with the music all of a sudden there is a yard sale that you purposely ignored on the way. So you stop, it looks as though there is something interesting sitting right there!

You slowly pass all the clothes, they don’t interest you, it’s all the kitchen gadgets that have caught your eye. Oooo a bread machine, blenders, electric mixers and Oooo there it is, the thing that you REALLY need…. A meat slicer. If you bought lunch meats in bulk, think of the money you could save! You almost drool as you gingerly pick it up and ask “Does this work?” You dicker back and forth with the person until you both come to a price that you both can live with.

Proud as a peacock you load your new meat slicer into the car and head on home, your mind filled with visions of money saving ideas.

You get home, unload the car, bringing in all your recently purchased items. You begin to unload the bags and put said items away when you realize that you forgot eggs and milk. Oh great! Well that will just have to wait.

You realize that your mantra did no good this time, you have spent all your grocery money on useless junk. You could return some of it back to the store but you know that one day you will use those items you have just purchased, at least once. Besides you can’t remember where you put the receipt.

As you try to find places for your ‘seal a meal’ and your meat slicer you start moving things around, Oooo here is the bread machine you bought last spring at that Garage Sale. You know, the one that didn’t come with instructions. Oooo homemade bread sounds good, lets just look online for a recipe. You run over to your computer to look up some recipes only to discover that you don’t have enough ingredients. Darn! Oooo a quick game of Euchre is just the thing you need for a little relaxation!