Crazy Lady
December 18, 2006
There are a lot of things going on here, besides the pre-Christmas rush, and while I have no time to breathe, much less blog, I have to at least share this little story from the grocery store on Friday afternoon.
The kids and I were killing time before we had to get Daren from school, so we wandered through the Great Canadian Superstore (read: huge mothereffing supermarket to the power of twenty hundred). Once at the self-serve checkouts, Dylan said he was hungry so I let him walk 4 feet to the nearest aisle, which happened to be snacky-type stuff.
When he came back, his eyes were wide and panicked. “Some weird lady just asked me if I had DIED!”
“What? Who?”
“A lady with frizzy hair asked me if I had DIED MOM! Why would she say that?”
I tried not to panic. “I don’t know, honey. You stay with me. Do you see her now?”
“She went that way,” he said, pointing.
“But you don’t see her?”
“No.”
I scanned through our items and bagged them. I kept looking at Dylan. He seemed okay, though shaken.
Once we got across from the checkouts to leave, I asked him again if he saw her.
“There she is!” he pointed.
My heart was pounding. I hate confrontation, but this is my child, and I had to know what this crazy woman was thinking, saying such an awful thing.
I approached her, put on my best bitch face, and Dylan stayed behind me. “Excuse me?”
She turned.
“Did you say something to my son?”
She looked at him and her mouth opened in surprise.
She covered her open mouth with one hand as realization came over her face. “Oh my God,” she started, “He was staring at all those treats and I asked him if he had died and gone to heaven.”
We both started to laugh.
“Well it sounded a lot creepier the way he told it,” I laughed, “He isn’t familiar with the expression.”
We stood and talked for a minute, and she apologized about 64 times for scaring him. Dylan and I wished her a Merry Christmas and she did the same.
As we left the store, Dylan learned what ‘died and gone to heaven’ meant and we had a good laugh too.
December 18th, 2006 at 11:32 am
THIS IS STINKIN’ HILARIOUS!!!
I laughed so hard!
December 18th, 2006 at 12:13 pm
That is so funny.
December 18th, 2006 at 12:43 pm
That is really funny. You know what’s weird? I never realized how many cliches, etc. that the US and Canada have for death until recently, all of which can be terribly misunderstood. It’s a weird, weird way of expressing stuff if you’re still learning what all of the expressions mean.
December 18th, 2006 at 12:50 pm
For a minute I was all freaked out thinking maybe Dylan saw dead people.
See, this is why I can’t watch horror movies.
December 18th, 2006 at 12:55 pm
the superstore can be a very, very scary place.
hee.
December 18th, 2006 at 1:54 pm
Oh man, I could have been that lady……
December 18th, 2006 at 2:52 pm
This reminds me of something that happened few years ago. I was walking in the mall, and a little girl was looking to the left and walking straight ahead. She almost walked right into me, when I told her, Watch out in the kindest tone I could muster I got the dirtiest look from that girls mother. I had no clue what I had done wrong.
I guess it s all depends on interpretation.
It s good that Dylan told you he thought something was amiss.
December 18th, 2006 at 4:27 pm
Nice. It’s good that he did tell your right away, otherwise, it might have come up at 2 a.m. in the middle of a nightmare!! And that’s all you need when you’re this busy!
December 18th, 2006 at 4:28 pm
Priceless!
December 18th, 2006 at 5:25 pm
Oh, man. NO WORDS. Just snorting. And some hooting.
December 18th, 2006 at 9:32 pm
That is one of those priceless stories you’ll still be telling years from now.
We call that place “The Stupid Store” because it is so easy to get stupid with your money in there. But I love the self serve checkouts. Best. Idea. Ever.
December 18th, 2006 at 10:46 pm
I’ve used that expression before and gotten quizzical looks from my daughter which made me ponder the mega-creepiness factor of that expression. No wonder he was freaked!
December 18th, 2006 at 11:01 pm
that is too freaking funny!
December 19th, 2006 at 9:15 am
OMG…..ROFLMAO…I just laughed out loud and scared Bean making her drop her snack cup all over! HAHA. All I could think of was Ghost Whisperer and how freaky that would be! Glad it turned out to be an okay thing!
December 19th, 2006 at 12:27 pm
OMG lol that’s hysterical!!!
December 19th, 2006 at 3:27 pm
Priceless!!!!!!!!!! Hahaaa
December 19th, 2006 at 5:01 pm
you are brave and a good mommy for doing this. It also teaches us how we can misunderstand one another.
December 19th, 2006 at 10:35 pm
Well, bless his heart! Good for you for standing up for your child, and clearing up a misunderstanding. I’m not confrontational, so I’d be scared to do something like that. But maybe next time I’ll get up the nerve.