What Did I Do?

My daughters have a complete and total lack of respect for me and I don't know what it is I did to deserve this. Here is the story.

The other night, I needed to stop at Shopko to pick up a few things. Not much, but enough to be a little unwieldy just to carry. As I passed the Coke coolers, I decided to pick up a couple of bottles to go along with dinner. I couldn't carry any more stuff, so I went to get myself a shopping cart. I guess I must have been struggling with the cart I was trying to extract from the rest, because a young girl--late high school, early college age--came rushing over to help me get the cart. 'Here, let me help you,' she said. Her tone of voice and the look on her face I knew very well--I have used both many times in my life. She looked at me and thought (I'm sure), 'I MUST help you. You remind me so much of my frail, very old, grandmother.' At that moment, I knew I had joined the ranks of 'little old ladies.' ACK!!!!!!!!! Of course, the first thing I did when I left the store was call my girls and tell them what had happened.

The oldest answered the phone and I told her, 'I am officially a little old lady now.' C answered, 'NOW what embarrassing thing did you do!' (See, total lack of respect!) After I told her the story--which she laughed at--she said, 'Well, at least you didn't pee yourself!' (Total lack of respect.) And then she said, 'Why are you surprised at this? You aren't exactly young anymore.' (This last thing was said with a grin in her voice. But still, total lack of respect.)

I called the youngest next. I said, 'I am officially a little old lady now.' A answered, 'NOW what did you steal!' (No respect.) She wasn't QUITE as bad as her sister, but she did tell me I'm not quite as young as I used to be and I should expect these things to happen more and more often. Nice kids. As for the 'NOW what did you steal.' remark, here is the story.

Last year, just before Christmas, a friend and I took advantage of the annual 'shop downtown' event we have here in the city. As in so many other places, our downtown area is a bit overlooked by shoppers who find it so much easier to go to the malls and strip malls that we have sprinkled around. So, the downtown merchants have these events to try and get more traffic and, hopefully, get more people to shop their stores. We went from store to store, filling out raffle forms and stuffing our faces with cookies and candies. At one point, we found ourselves in our local Christian bookstore. And here is where it gets interesting.

B was looking to add some figures to her Nativity set, so she was asking the owner if they still make the size she needed. A discussion about Nativity sets, and other things, began. As we were standing by the cash register/counter, I began looking at all of the 'impulse buying' stuff that most stores have at the check-out. The display of the Bible devotional booklets 'The Daily Bread' caught my eye. I hadn't had one in quite awhile, so I picked one out of the rack and put it in my bag. B looked at me like she wanted me dead. I couldn't figure out what her problem was and then it occurred to me that she didn't realize that 'The Daily Bread' was a free give-away booklet--we used to have them in our church free for the taking. After a few minutes, the conversation was over and we left the store.

As soon as we were outside, she said, 'WHY did you take that without paying for it?' I told her I didn't have to pay, that they were free. To which she answered, 'Then why did the sign say $1.00?' I almost died. I HAD to go back into the store, apologize, and pay my $1.00. This is, after all, a small town and I couldn't be remembered as the woman who stole something right in front of the owner! And the man didn't even smile or even try to make me feel better when I apologized to him. Jackass. (In my defense, I spent a lot of time in the store when it was owned by the people he bought it from. At that time, the booklets were free to whoever wanted one. The publishers STILL give them for free, but this store owner decided this would be a way for them to raise some money for the non-profit company that distributes the booklets. That is the reason they now charged for them.)

This incident took place about six months ago. I haven't been back to the downtown stores since. My girls said my picture and description is probably posted in all of the stores. They told me I should probably not go there again. Total lack of respect on their part.