Children and Shopping go Together like Oil and Water

I try to avoid taking my children shopping. This is a survival technique, not just for myself, but also for my children. I know this, and yet, there are still times when we all go shopping together. When I say we, I mean my husband, our five sons, and myself. This almost always ends in tears. It's only a question of whether the tears are going to belong to my children or to me. I will make a note here that I don't EVER under any circumstances take all five of my children shopping with only me to keep an eye on them. I have on occasion taken up to three of them to a store, but that is where I draw the line, and I only take three under extreme duress.
Today we all went shopping together, in the name of family time. Our shopping adventure began at Deals Only, which is a local shop that, as the name states, has only deals. This means that a lot of the merchandise is junk, but there are occasionally gems of lovely value there. I had forgotten to take the list of things that the boys needed for school supplies when I went shopping at Wal Mart previously. The nearest Wal Mart is over an hour away from where we live, so I decided to check out Deals only and see if the few school supplies I had not gotten yet might be available there. I was able to get most of what I needed, as well as a few other things. The boys were fairly well behaved in the upstairs part of the store, although I do recall having to repeat their names constantly to try to get them to stay with me. Then we went to the downstairs area, of which half of it is toys. This is where things got a little bit out of control. First of all, our second to youngest son K saw this little sword that he thought was cool. K is the king of pretending to be a cool hero, and he couldn't resist picking that sword up and giving it a little swing. CLANG! KACHING!!!!! Imagine his surprise when the thing started making noise! Yes, it was an electronic sword, with great sound effects accompanying every swing and parry. K proceeded to walk around with the sword, accompanied by a constant CLANG, KACHING chorus. He had the biggest grin on his face, and it would have been cute if not for the grating, nerve wrenching noise. Not to be outdone, son #2, (TaeKwonDo son) S picked up another sword, and a stuffed elephant. Then he pretended to cut the head off of the elephant, and the shrieking sound effect that accompanied it was so cool that he had to show it to each of his brothers, repeatedly. Meanwhile middle son T, had found the toy cars and was lining them up on the floor, in a long line, and youngest son C was carrying around a Thomas the Tank Engine toy and didn't look like he was ever going to put it down. Oldest son J was finding interesting things left and right to show us as well. It was all a little bit overwhelming, and I have to tell you, that compared to other shopping excursions we have taken, they were being pretty angelic. Eventually we pried everyone away from their respective interests and got them upstairs (this is where having my husband there came in particularly handy, as he gathered up the stragglers while I went to pay for our purchases.) I had some more errands to do, so believe it or not, we walked to three more stores, and then drove to yet another one, and they were good the whole time! Who says miracles don't happen. Now I will say, that just because things went relatively well today, doesn't mean that I am going to make a habit of taking kids shopping. Generally when I take just one of them, depending on which one it is, I get a lot of whining, and pointing, and begging. So I am all for solo shopping. I always feel a moment of serenity when I am in a store by myself and I see some poor parent with a whiny kid, begging and throwing a fit. I feel a tiny flash of sympathy for the parent, and then a huge wave of gratitude for being there alone. I love my kids, don't get me wrong, but I like the peace and quiet of shopping by myself.