A Grand Day Out (The Big Family Way)

A trip to the grocery store, when you have 10 children, becomes An Occasion, with a capital A and a capital O. For one thing, we always have a ton of stuff to buy, since there are so many of us, so we require multiple carts, and much to-ing and fro-ing between the isles. It is also more cost effective to buy in bulk, so rather than the local grocery chain, we haul all the way out to Costco, or some other wholesale supplier.

As always, we have implemented certain rules to assist the smoothness of this process: no touching any merchandise (sometimes we were absolutely required to walk along with our hands folded behind our backs), and no asking to buy things. (One child might ask for one candy bar. Ten children, ten candy bars. One child, one toy. Ten children, ten toys. Both the price and the storage space at home quickly become prohibitive.)

We did not however, lack for entertainment as we trailed along behind the cart, attempting to avoid stepping on one another's heels and toes. (Or stepping on them purposefully, depending on the temperament of the child). We took great interest in arranging ourselves into what we considered to be the most decorative formations: generally a judiciously spaced single file (which made our number appear even greater), shortest to tallest. This kept the youngest children near Mother, while creating a sweeping upward curve effect for the people who came towards us, most pleasing to the eye.

Occasionally, a child (usually one of us girls!) who had been recently over-topped by a sprouting younger sibling made some protest about their demotion, but in the end dignity was sacrificed to artistic rigor. The oldest siblings took charge of this display, and we did our best to instill a sense of discipline into the unruly members of the family, to keep the line straight. We also attempted to introduce marching as part of the procession, but this was a failure, overall. We do not have a very good sense of rhythm, and we were prohibited from calling out the steps to keep time. It may be that our vigorous "HUT-TWO-THREE-FOUR" or the command "You, there! Dress up that line!" distracted our Beloved Parent from her gathering of food for her household.

Indeed, at times she seemed rather flustered to check behind her and see us parading solemnly along in a column, attracting rather a lot of attention from other shoppers. Often and often, we spoke among ourselves of waving or saluting to people as we went by, but we never quite dared. There are limits, after all. We would, however, assist those who were obviously trying to count, by spreading all our fingers in the air, or whispering "ten" as we passed.

All this is very well for the grocery store, but there are some outings—such as the zoo, an amusement park, or a conference—where it is impossible to keep us in line at all times, and different measures are called for. In such cases, the Matching Outfits come into play.

First, Mom bought a bunch of yellow t-shirts. Though entirely unsuited to the family complexion, we wore the horrible, mustard-coloured things until we outgrew them, or they wore out. They were replaced with orange shirts, which were slightly better. In due course those wore out, and were replaced with red.

This color, we quickly discovered, was not striking enough. You may have never noticed anyone wearing a solid red t-shirt, but I can assure you that once your entire family is clothed in red, you are instantly aware of the hundred other people also dressed in red, which quite spoils the effect, besides making it more difficult to count your children, rather than less. We discarded the red shirts, and for a season experimented with matching lime green handkerchiefs around our necks, though by this time we were all old enough not to wander off, and the system was becoming less necessary.

The t-shirts worked fairly well, in making us conspicuous and easy for parents to spot. We have had children returned to us by strangers, with the comment, "This must belong to you", when we are all matching, and we have successfully retrieved children without panic from distances of over three hundred feet. Due to our climate, however, we are often wearing jackets or coats when we go out, and this decreases the efficiency of the system.

At the present time, we have expanded the scheme to include our cousins, and the shirt colour has changed to blue, in support of the Cousin County football/baseball/basketball/volleyball team (The Cousin County Canines).