You know your kids have had a bad-behavior day in church when someone approaches you after services and practically demands that they take your kids for the day. We recently endured one of those Sunday mornings when my sole prayer was that the preacher would have mercy on us all and just end the sermon.
From fits to slobbery, full-face, open-mouth kisses to blowing his nose without a Kleenex, the baby had tried everything that morning to tempt me to the dark side. His brother was every bit as evil, and was sucking Dad right in with him. I suppose the disheveled pony-tail, makeup-less face, and scowl lines now permanently carved into my brow gave it away that I had just had “one of those days”. And it was only 11 a.m.
That is when a brave, fellow mother of two approached me and insisted that she take the boys to her farm for the afternoon to give me a break. Every polite, think-of-others-first bone in my body told me that I should not send my two kids with a practical stranger on a day when they are behaving like senseless maniacs. But my weary mind said, “Do it! Do it now!”
So off they went, with an exchange of phone numbers and barely enough diapers to make it through the day. I had been given the gift of solitude. Now what would I do? I decided to do something that I used to enjoy but haven’t done much of since becoming a mother. I decided to go shopping. I wasn’t searching for a new wardrobe or even an entire outfit. All I wanted was a new pair of shoes.
Of course, it had been ages since I’d bought myself tennis shoes, so I really didn’t know what I was in for. And after browsing the store for all of 30 seconds, I must have gotten sticker shock, because my goal suddenly changed from buying a good, quality running shoe to simply getting out of there with a little grocery money still in my pocket.
After a near episode of hyperventilation and some heavy “self-talk”, I convinced myself that spending less than $40 on an appropriate tennis shoe was not going to happen, and that it was okay to splurge just this once. After all, the last shoes I bought were a pair of white leather Keds, circa 1996.
I tried on every pair of running shoe in the store. None seemed to match the high quality that the price tag reflected, at least in my eyes, but I picked one nonetheless and tried to be happy about it. I took my shoes of gold to the register to check out and realized that thanks to free enterprise, and the cost of labor in Taiwan, I might need to reconsider my method of payment. Payday was still two weeks away.
After five minutes of digging through my purse, however, I was forced to tell the cashier that she would not be making her commission on my purchase today. I had no billfold, no checkbook, and certainly no cash. I walked limply to the car, embarrassed and dejected. Not only had I wasted my time, but I had also wasted half of my mother’s day out, and I had no new shoes to show for it.
Just as I was set to go speeding off into the distance, I noticed my billfold sitting in the diaper bag in the back seat of the car, so I returned to the cashier to again attempt my purchase. She tried my credit card, but immediately gave it back to me, as it had expired the day before. With no new card to give her, I quickly scribbled out a check and scurried out the door before some unsuspecting act of nature ripped those shoes back out of my hands.
I promised the lady who took my kids that day that I would not spend the afternoon cleaning my house or doing laundry, but after my shopping experience, I decided that washing clothes and cleaning the house might not be the worst way to spend what was left of my day. Besides, now I had something else to look forward to: a heart-stopping, joint-swelling, bone-breaking run in my expensive new shoes.
And that’s All in a day’s work!
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