Wednesday, February 1, 2006

Stupid things people say.

So, my friend Cheryl and I took our kiddies to the mall this afternoon. Between the two of us there are: a three-year old, two year old, 8 month old, and a 4 month old. Yes, you can give us our medals (or drugs/alcohol) now.

The three year old needed new shoes. We went to the store were you always Pay Less. The person helping us had to have been raised under a rock or in some sort of cave, away from polite society. At the very least this woman should not be in a retail sales situation where the goal is to butter up people so they will spend gobs of money in your establishment. Yes, I know that people who work at the store where you Pay Less probably don't work on commission, but all salespeople have their sales tracked--you can get prizes and stuff. (I know this from experience)

Anyway, the little boy who needed shoes likes Dora the Explorer. There are no "little boy" shoes with Dora on them (or Diego, for that matter--wassup, Nickelodeon??) This little boy wanted to try on the pink shoes because Dora was on them. His Mom knew that one of the other three children in tow could blow like a volcano at any moment, so she found some shoes with Dora on them in his size. Enter the saleswoman. "Those are girl shoes." Uhh, do we look like we care??? Those of you with toddlers know all about choosing your battles. When the goal is to have shoes on feet, who cares which cartoon character is on them? For that matter--whose to say the small person in blue wasn't a girl in her big brother's hand me downs?? We both kind of rolled our eyes at the saleswoman, before continuing our search for shoes for the little boy. She tried to save face by making small talk about our children. She asked which of the children belonged to which of the mommies. She then turned to me and said: "Wow! You must have your hands full with two." She then glanced at me and added "And I see you are expecting again?" WTF????? Doesn't she know the cardinal rule? You don't ask if a woman is gestating unless she is telling you the time between her contractions, or talking about visits to the OB/Midwife/doula. I was gobsmacked--I mumbled something about not being pregnant (I was being polite because there were impressionable children around...and I was so stunned the appropriate snarky comment just didn't come to me) She then tried to backpedal by telling me all about her troubles losing weight post-partum as well.

Uh, Yeah. You lost me at "expecting again?".

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Oh, my word! I would have crumpled into a ball and cried. Where do these people get the idea that that's a safe question to ask? Besides, you may have a post-partum tummy, but you certainly don't have a pregobelly. Come to think of it... The person probably wasn't too good at math as Char isn't very old yet & ummm... DUH!!!!

Okay, I'm a little stressed on your behalf right now!! Take care, LUL