True Story Tuesday

I think back to when this happened a lot, just because it reminds me to be on guard since Miss Priss is two and turning into a jabber-box...

About five years ago, Lady M was three, and I was still a single mom. Lady M learned to talk, and talk well, at an early age. She did everything fairly early, walking right before she turned nine months old. So by this time, at age three, she was quite the conversationalist.

We were in Walmart, shopping for groceries. Now, if you know me, you know that I do not particularly like Walmart. It doesn't keep me from shopping there, but some days the place is so crowded and so understocked, it's like a horror film for me. I'm not freaked out by crowds as a general rule, but there were times when I would lose my patience and get in and out as fast as possible, and occasionally ram into people if they don't move quickly enough at my "excuse me". This just happened to be one of those days.

Every aisle was slam packed with people, and kids running around everywhere. It was crowded and I was not in the mood to deal with it. People were having their family reunions in the middle of the canned vegetables, and I couldn't pass to get what I needed. So I was not paying a lot of attention to individual folks, or Lady M sitting in the shopping cart. As I rounded the corner to go to the bread aisle, Lady M looked up at me with huge eyes.

Lady M: "Mama, did you see that woman???"

Me: "No Lady M, what woman?"

At this time, the most inconvenient lull came in the loud hubbub of the store.

Lady M: " That big fat woman over there, look Mama, she's so BIG! You can see her butt hanging out the top of her pants. That's gross!!"

I was blushing, mortified and inappropriately amused. I started pushing our cart as fast as I could, even though everyone in a twenty yard radius had heard what she'd said and was looking back and forth between us and the woman. I didn't realize how close the woman she'd been speaking of was to us. As a matter of fact, she came up right behind us after what I thought was my speedy getaway, and if eyes could shoot daggers, I would be scarred with all kinds of stab wounds.

Me: "Lady M, we don't say things like that, it's not nice."

Lady M: "But Mama, why would she wear something like that??"

And at this point, I had nothing else to say. (but I do wonder the same thing quite often, don't they have a mirror???)

I have to remind myself of this on a regular basis, knowing that there will soon come a day in a grocery store when my next child will unknowingly embarrass me to death.