Ashley Willis
My heart began to beat faster. My cheeks turned red, my voice began to change, and I just know my pupils grew to the size of Junior Mints in my eyes. It was the kind of metamorphosis you’d expect from Dr. Jekyll as he transitioned into Mr. Hyde or like the teenager turning into the werewolf. I was morphing into something sinister and crazy. All I could think was, “Why doesn’t this kid get it? These are his first and only pair of prescription glasses, and they weren’t cheap!”. My calm left the building, and I allowed my inner “momster” to takeover. I seriously think my head might have spun around like the Exorcist. With a deep, sharp voice and gnarly face, I commanded Connor to put down his toys and ordered him to start searching for his glasses.
Meanwhile, my three year-old, Chandler, escaped from his stroller and ran down one aisle to look at a magnifying glass. I started yelling, “No, Chandler! Come here, right now!”. A nice lady, who couldn’t help but hear my pleas and see my ridiculous predicament, tried to help by “keeping an eye out” for the glasses. I am sure my less-than-sincere smile made her feel my deep thankfulness, even though, I honestly appreciated her kind gesture. I finally got a hold of Chandler, just as he opened a bag of candy off the shelf, and began to put the pressure on Connor once again…all while frantically searching through piles and piles of toys myself.
Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, they did! I tried explaining to Chandler that the candy, he had ripped open, wasn’t ours, and I took the broken bag from him. So, for the next ten minutes, he was kicking, screaming, crying, and yelling, “My candy!”. So (inhale), I had one child acting as if it was funny to lose his glasses, another screaming and crying about candy that wasn’t his, the eldest wandering around aimlessly, and my “baby on board” was karate-chopping my abs like he was training for a role in “The Karate Kid”. That was pretty much the riveting climax of our lovely shopping experience (exhale).
It was intense to say the least. We must have been making quite a scene when a Dollar Tree worker walked up to us and asked, “What is the problem? Can I help?”. I told her that Connor lost his glasses and gave her a description of how they looked. She smiled and offered to search for them as well. In less than a minute, she excitedly said, “Found ’em!” and brought the beloved glasses to me. I slowly turned to Connor, gave him a sinister grin, and demanded that he thank the lady. He nervously smiled and thanked her. Then, I leaned over to him and eerily whispered to him that he was grounded for one week. He didn’t say a word.
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