The night started out just as any other night... I got home from work and met up with the family. We bickered momentarily about who was cooking dinner and what exactly we were having. Discussions were had about shopping at Target, Wal-mart, or some other commonly known retail hell. We finally decided to hit Wal-mart after cooking the boys a couple of those frozen cardboard wafers, commonly known as pizzas, while us adults dined on the fabulous tastings of Quiznos. Bleh.

Dinner went without a hitch, for once. After bathroom visits and the ritual whining about our shoes, we piled into the family mobile. We weaved in and out of traffic frantically while cussing, swearing, and screaming at neighboring drivers. In fact, bitching out other drivers on the road has become one of our favorite family past times. I drive, then call some idiot cutting me off an "ass ramming fuck wad!", and then I wait patiently for one of my three passengers to stammer "Who?" Once we're waiting at a red light for what seems to be an eternity you can hear "Go Orion! Go!" I roll my eyes, debate whether or not I should put the car in park, and continue to wait.

Eventually we did make it to Wal-mart, but apparently someone did not visit the bathroom before she got in the car with the responsible members of the family who did go... so Mr. 7, Mr. 4, and myself perused the Halloween isle while she went to the nearest facility.

We found bleeding skull faces, ordinary witch masks, and something that looked like a melted liver face. Batman, Spider-man, Iron-man, and a million other Marvel super suits were hanging in the isles for wear. We looked at eye make up, silly string, vampire teeth, and light up pumpkins before deciding the Halloween section was not pushing the envelope for creativity.

We were in the process of vacating the drippy rubber section of doom when an audible sneeze could be heard. My instinct immediately rotated my unwilling body to look at Mr. 4, who has the nastiest allergies I've ever seen. I blankly stared at him for a moment as he stood there, paralyzed by the slimy snake of mucous that dangled from his nose. Before the feelings of disgust could run through my non-parent veins I quickly looked around to assess the situation and found nothing to aid us.

I am not a quick thinker, I sat there staring at him in disgust for what seemed to be an eternity. The poor kid is trying his darnedest too keep the 2 foot snot dragon from attacking his clothes and all I can think of is how revolting that shit is.

I am not a natural born parent, I don't think to ask some random stranger for a tissue.
I am not a resourceful person, sure I used to work at a Wal-mart ages ago, sure I knew that there are towel dispensers at the end of certain isles, but no... I don't think about that crap in a time of need. Instead I encourage Mr. 4 to keep his head down as the snake slithers it's way closer to the floor, hoping the damn thing will catch soon and plummet from his nose.

The thing wasn't moving, in fact it stood there and did mucous muscle poses to prove to us it's sticky strength. I had to do something. So, I frantically dug in my pockets for something, anything, but all I had was my wallet and the coveted shopping list. I picked the obvious and tore off the blank part of the shopping list, which gave me a 2 x 3 inch chunk of paper. With surgical precision I scraped off the dangling beast and watched it plop onto the floor. Mr. 7 and I let out a synchronized "ooh" of morbid fascination. The jelly-like blob jiggled on the floor; it looked like a spoonful of tapioca pudding, but the color and consistency of apple jelly. Tasty!