Only at Walmart

I went to Wal-Mart yesterday.

I should stop here and allow your imaginations to take control.

But I won’t.

I had just one kid, Minion #3 and we were on a mission. He had things he wanted to accomplish and I needed milk and meatballs. We set out on our adventure through the great uncompromising capitalist jungle with lists in hand and my Shop kick app at the ready. We had a few successful “kicks” under our belts when it happened…

The kid was in the “big part” of the shopping cart, a thing that I do to keep me from loading it up with the inevitable crap I don’t need except when I am standing in front of it at Wal-Mart wondering how I have lived my whole life without that watermelon knife.

So there we were scanning the barcode of Sensodyne toothpaste, the minion was standing up in the cart with his hand on my shoulder “helping” me with my phone. When all of a sudden a random lady stopped dead at the end of the toothpaste isle, left her cart and ran over to us whisper-yelling “Oh NO! Little boy you MUST sit down. Please! Do you know what will happen to you when you fall out of that cart? Your head will Bust open and you will have to go to the hospital and get it glued back together!”

#3 and I stood in silence for what felt like a full 2 minutes though it was probably more like 3 seconds. Our eyes wide, mouths slightly open from shock, if we were emojies we would have been “WTF!?” faces. Then #3 looked at her and said “Uhhhh. What?” (Couldn’t have said it better myself). She gave an odd little giggle like a mix between Tweety Bird and Satan. Then repeated herself going further to say that he should not stand in the cart and that “I’m sure your mother is just too busy to notice but sweetie, you are just too cute and I would hate to see you permanently injured, I’m sure your Mommy really doesn’t have time for that.”

The kid and I looked at each other, blinked, looked back at her, and waited.

She then went on to tell him how cute he is (naturally he agreed with that). She waited until he sat down and then walked off tossing over her shoulder “Not trying to tell you how to parent, he is just so cute.” Which is when I should have said, “What in the absolute hell does one have to do with the other you crazy over parenting nightmare of a fellow Wal-Mart shopper. Seriously what the Shit!?”  But she was gone before I could get my thoughts gathered from a stream of expletives to a semi-proper sentence.

As we walked through the rest of the store #3 kept an eye out for “The Lady” as he called her. One of our goals for that particular trip was for him to spend his own money. I wanted to teach him about price comparison and making sure he bought what he came for etc. In order to do that I would have him stand in the cart to read prices and what have you. Every time I told him to stand he would hold his little four-year-old index finger up and say “Wait Mommy. Must check for The Lady”. The first time he did it I asked him why, his explanation was simple “She not gonna yell at MY Mommy again!”

Throughout our shopping he would randomly put his hand to his forehead as if on look out, whip his head around and say, “CLEAR!” It actually turned into quite an exhilarating little game.

When we finally reached check out we were pleased to find that ahead of us in line was one of our sweet church ladies. #3 yelled “HEY! HEY YOU, IT’S ME! I LOVE YOU!” Which of course caused her to fly into him with a gargantuan embrace. They chatted a little, discussing their day and what not until the kid looked up and said “Oh, I’m sorry you need get back to your spot now. The Lady is here. Mommy, quick, it’s her, she’s behind you!”

I turned and was face to face with her. She spent the entire time in line grilling the minion asking if he’s a good boy and why he had a Shopkins piggy bank. “That is very pretty is that for your sister?” she asked. “NO.” said my boy “It’s mine! (pish) No sisters!”

I liked how he handled that one but I would have thrown in a “bitch please”.

He then explained that he broke his Ninjin Turtle piggy bank so he had to buy a new one with his own money. That impressed her so she started praising my parenting which of course, transitioned into a lecture on how one should raise children to be fiscally responsible.

As she was explaining to #3 that it is never too early to start saving for college our lovely and wonderful church lady appeared at the minion’s side folding a ten dollar bill into his small fist. “Do you think if I give you this you could talk your Mommy into buying you and your brothers some ice cream?”

His bright excited eyes answered before he could squeak out “Yes! Mommy will do that!”

The Lady silently watched the interaction with wonder. After our church lady left the other lady couldn’t help herself “Well that was awfully generous. Makes you wonder why a person would do that.”

I took that as my opening and said, “Well my husband is a pastor and she is one of our sweet church members that loves to spoil my kids rotten.”

Suddenly everything changed. She stood up straighter, moved her beer under the frozen pizza in her cart and began to absolutely fawn over my parenting skills. Her word patterns swiftly transitioned into spouting out things like “blessed” and “praise be”.

I have to say, it was worth it all just to watch this amazing transformation, if I was a different type of believer I might say she was saved right there in aisle 21 at the Festus Wal-Mart.

Dude's gotta be tough to have Mommies back!