Just Call Me Shady

It's official.

We're shady.

I tried to buy a gift card today at the grocery store Neiman Marcus. I had both boys with me, one of whom had removed his shoes--and socks--shortly after we entered the store. Then said boy, in a momentary fit of rage (those are my favorite kind) yanked on the canopy of the stroller, and caused it to fall halfway off, with the hardware sticking out at an angle that was guaranteed to maim anyone who came near us. It's just as well. We all tend to do much better if our fellow shoppers keep their distance.

All of this as I was looking for the gift card section,which I couldn't find since we decided to live it up and go to a grocery store Neiman Marcus we don't typically frequent. I asked an employee, who looked us over, pointed us in the right direction, and then proceeded to follow us from a distance. Clearly, in our current state, we appear to be less than model citizens.

We find the gift cards. We go to the register. The teenage cashier look us over and say, "I think you need to pay for this with cash"

I inform him that I don't have cash. The cashier looks nervous and asks someone to check. We wait. And wait. He is sweating. I think we are making him nervous. He says he has never gotten a straight answer on whether not you have to buy gift cards with cash. It just depends.

It just depends?
On what?

Finally, I say,

"Does it depend on whether or not we look shady"?

He laughs. And shrugs. And looks nervously toward the manager's booth.

"Do we look shady to you?" I ask him in my nicest Shady Mom voice.

"No!" He assures me, a little too quickly.

His phone rings and he answers it and quickly hangs up.

"I'm sorry. You have to pay with cash".

Yup, it's official.

We're shady.

B asks why we had to wait so long, as I maneuver the broken stroller with one shoeless child, and another desperately grabbing for candy, away from the register.

Great. Now they probably think I don't feed them either.

"Sorry, B". I tell him. "We're shady."

"No you're not mom!" he shakes his head and looks confused. "I don't think so."

Aww, what a sweet boy coming to his shady momma's defense. What better Mother's Day gift could I ask for?

"You're not, Mom," he is shaking his head adamantly, as I do the stroller pushing walk of shame out into the parking lot.

"Grady is my friend. He's just a boy. You're not Grady."

Huh.

Nope, I'm not Grady.

But you can still call me Shady.