Would you like some whipped cream on that?

After dinner tonight I decided it was time for me to buy a book I have been meaning to get for a long time. It’s called ‘Your Wearing That?’ and it’s about the complicated relationships between mothers and daughters. Being that my mothers unveiling is this coming weekend and her one year anniversary of her passing is coming up I thought it was about time for me to join the group of mothers and daughters (and anyone else) who actually try to understand the most complicated relationship known to the human race. Why I want to torture myself like that? I don’t know. But I feel its something I have to do.

With baby J in tow, we go to the Borders near our new home. I figured I would check it out and see what their Children’s section has to offer. We walk in, J with his sippy, and I see the book that I was there for and grab it. J runs through the aisles as fast as I can blink and I finally get him the Children’s section. I strongly believe you cannot bring a child to a bookstore without buying him a book. I start searching the board books for something that might intrigue him or at least have him sit with me for 5 minutes to read to him. J picks up a little Elmo doll and around the corner, between the board books and the picture books is a nice, grey, commercial sized book cart with the large metal bars and wheels as big as J’s head sits. Elmo seems to find his way to the bay area of the cart and Elmo gets a ride of his life. Going back and forth and up and down the board book aisle. Occasionally he found himself being smashed into a bookshelf, but no one got hurt.

Instead of fighting with him, I let him roll the cart around. It was harmless and he has played with things bigger and much more treacherous than that. I figured I would get him to bring the cart to the register and recommend to the underpaid idiot taking my money to put it in the proper place. Then have an all out temper tantrum scene on the way out of the store.

So on my way from point A to point B we bumped into a woman who obviously worked there displaying her big green (or was it red?) name tag which I didn’t have a chance to read and had quite a superiority complex. She practically chased us down and went up to J telling him that the cart was not a toy. Me, knowing that he wasn’t going to hurt himself, maybe others, but not himself, I briefly explained how I tried to get it away from him and figured I would let him roll it to the checkout. He wasn’t hurting anyone, especially himself, and he was quiet and happy. The woman, in a firm voice, started to explain how the cart was dangerous and he could really get hurt and it shouldn’t be played with by a child. I just stood up as I pulled J away from her beloved cart and stated, "Such a dangerous item shouldn’t be left in the Children’s section of your store."

She stormed away in a huff.