Do you ever run into someone who wrecks your day? I’ve had a few such encounters while living in Warrenton. I often write about how much I love living in Warrenton and how beautiful Fauquier County is, and how wonderful the people here are. Not only does that keep me in your good graces, considering that I am still a relative newcomer here after five years, but I also get paid an extra nickel.
A couple of summers ago, I was shopping at Safeway with my two youngest children, aged six and three then. I had gotten one of those highly coveted kiddie carts that has the bright red and yellow fire truck appended to the front so that two loosely belted kids can ride ahead of your cart as if they were heralding a regal procession. Never mind that this cab throws the entire vehicle off kilter, and leaves you to negotiate the aisles with the cart fishtailing wildly. You spend as much time hoisting the cart off its rear wheels, and pivoting as you do pushing the cart. So what? The kids absolutely love this experience. The kiddie cart increases your shopping time and fatigue, but what is parenting if it is overflowing with time and energy? My kids have outgrown the kiddie cart (especially the teens!), but I prefer it to letting them use those “Little Shopper” carts. You know the miniaturized shopping carts that can be vehicles of destruction when wielded by the youngest of our citizens, with the “Shopper in Training” flags? They are usually driven recklessly, with kids careening through the aisles, narrowly missing the ankles of other shoppers and the piles of sparkling cider in GLASS containers. Maybe the flags should say “Chopper in Training.”
So I will take the fire truck in which my children are relatively confined over the mini shopper almost any day. My kids can barely squeeze into the cab part nowadays, but since I haven’t seen a weight capacity rating on the thing, I still let them squish into it. It’s nice because I can hand down a snack while we shop, and they can steer as wildly as they like with their pseudo-steering wheels without endangering others. The downside is that they can spot “sales” from their vantage point and are often certain that we absolutely need to replenish our stock of gummy somethings.
As we traveled up and down (and side to side) in the aisles, whenever I saw something we needed, I let the kids alternate in hopping out of the cab to pick it out for me. Hence, they were not buckled up down there. At one point, my son, in his excitement to pick out an item for me, caught his foot while stepping out of the cab, and fell headfirst onto the hard floor. It was one of those awful thuds that promises to produce a goose-egg on the child’s head that is almost as big as your guilty feeling. It was the sort of thud in which the child does not immediately emit sound. He or she is gasping for air to fuel the cry, and the delay before the cry is proportional to the intensity of the scream, and presumably, the intensity of the pain. It was a full two seconds before he let out his fire alarm.
As I swooped my flailing and shrieking child off the ground, a fellow shopper surveyed the scene and loudly told me, “Well, that’s what they make belts for.” I was so flustered, I couldn’t think what to say to her. The Safeway employees were very gracious and brought ice in paper towels for my son. I felt horrible for my son and was annoyed with myself and most especially with the callous shopper.
I wanted to say, “Wow? Why did no one tell me that Mother Teresa was reincarnated and roaming around Warrenton?” but I am not a quick thinker. What, if anything, would you have said to this woman?
No comments:
Post a Comment