Out Amid the Holiday Throng

Mom comes home after work yesterday with the urgent, urgent need to go shopping. I go, but my heart filled with dread when she mentioned the W-word. Walmart.

So, I drive there because the PT is small and fit into little parking spaces. We rounded the corner and discovered that everyone else who lived in the Northland had the same idea. Someone even brought a moving truck. Now that is some serious Christmas shopping!

We manage to park in a spot that isn't in Kansas, and hike to the store. Once inside...bedlam. People everywhere buying everything that isn't nailed down. Mom and I wander around the store with a cart that has a bad wheel. We always manage to get the cart that has the bad wheel. An hour or so later, we make it up to the checkout. After careful consideration, Mom decides to do as I did...GIFT CARDS!!

As we are in the checkout line, two children are running around like someone gave them an IV bolus of Kool-Aid before they came to the store.

Oh yes, they were also yelling and squealing.

Somewhere, miles away, dogs began to howl.

The one boy was wearing a motorcross helmet that the parents were planning on purchasing, makes a running start before swan diving onto the ground, and sliding about 3 feet, almost knocking over a Walmart employee. The mother laughs like its the funniest thing in the world. The boy begins squirming around on the ground, still in the helmet, picking up whatever seen and unseen object that happened to be laying in that particular area.

I started to go into convulsions, filled the strong desire to go rip my uterus out of my body, ensuring that I will never, ever procreate and risk giving birth to that kid.

I remember when I was a child, my parents NEVER took us kids to go Christmas shopping. Not even grocery shopping. We got to stay home with a sitter.

Now, I understand why.

I turned to my mother and said, "Now I know why you never took us kids anywhere. We were evil children."

She smiled that matronly smile, the one that not only says "Mother knows best", but also that triumphant smile that comes with being acknowledged that you were right.

I thought I also detected something of a smirk that said, "You just wait 'til you have kids of your own."