Strangers

The other day I was unloading my kids in the Trader Joe's parking lot in a hurry, getting ready for a major grocery trip. I was anticipating the chaos that is a grocery store full of busy moms & crying children all trying to squeeze down narrow aisles simultaneously, and already beginning to feel stressed without even stepping a foot in the door. Which reminds me, Attention All Store Managers: Here's a tip.You should probably offer moms a Mimosa when they walk in your door. If you do, I predict these moms will relax, smile more, yell at their kids less, and probably inadvertently buy more stuff. Irish coffee would also do the trick as well. Or sake. Oh, how I love me a glass of hot sake....
But I digress.

So I had just put Ella in the stroller, Ben was beside me, when a cute little old lady who had parked next to us came and approached us. I always make an effort to be extra sweet to little old ladies like this because most of the time they just want to fawn over my children and enjoy the undeniable (what? I'm not biased!) cuteness they posses. Many of these women proudly share with me sweet little anecdotes about their own children/grandchildren, or some just miss their own grandchildren so desperately that they simply can't resist doting on every child in sight. My children are creatures of habit, so when we're approached in this manner, they've learned over time to flash a smile and wave hi or shake these ladies' hands or blow kisses, etc. And this inevitably brightens these ladies' day, so they walk away happy and I walk away happy and proud of my cute kids who smiled at the nice stranger. Everyone wins.

This was not the case with this particular woman.

At first, everything started as per usual. She made comments about my "fancy" stroller and how she never had anything like it when she was a young mom herself. She touched a couple of my things as she was admiring my stroller but it didn't really bother me because after all, she was just a sweet old woman. She began talking to my kids and commented how cute they were when suddenly she had to ruin everything and ask what was on Ella's face. Is it some sort of rash, she wanted to know, looking at us as if she'd just been exposed to a leper. Then I had to delve into my rehearsed monologue about how Ella simply has a bad case of eczema which is nothing more than severely dry skin, and how she gets flare-ups on her chubby little cheeks depending on the season, what she eats, etc.

In hindsight, sharing this innocent tidbit of information was a mistake of giant proportions.

Suddenly, this woman- let's call her "Sue", shall we?-- begins sharing with me her own skin ailments. And by sharing, I mean slowly (EVER SO PAINFULLY SLOOOOOOWLY) bending over to show me her swollen ankles that have suffered from various rashes for years and oh my heavens she must have a strong case of eczema as well. Then there was the large part of her mid-brow that is constantly dry and itchy. And flaking. Look?! Do I see the flakes? I might need to get closer so I can REALLY see her dry flakes. Such a shame to have such flake-prone skin, Sue claimed. And this is when I realized two things: 1) I've never heard anyone use variations of the word "flake" so many time in one sentence, and 2) Maybe Sue isn't totally....."with it", shall we say? I'm smiling on the outside, but internally I just want to get inside that store and get this stressful shopping trip overwith already. This is when she hits me with: (brace yourself because apparantly not all 72 year old women speak as tactfully as I had always assumed)

"You know, skin issues are just a BITCH! [Cue Ben's wide-eyed curious wonderment] I mean, I can handle my body getting older because if something hurts, if I get a headache, I just pop a pill and BOOM! All better! But these skin problems!? A BITCH! Oh, and don't even get me started on the yeast infections underneath my breasts that I used to constantly have. [OH.MY.GOSH. Is this some sort of sick prank???? Am I being punked?] Those breast yeast infections are the worst! I mean, can you imagine how miserable a perpetual yeast infection underneath your breasts would be? You know, all you hear about in today's culture is how great it is to have large breasts* [*this is not the actual word she used, but sometimes family reads this blog of mine, and I'm so embarrassed and disappointed by "Sue's" potty mouth that I felt it necessary to censor her. But call me anytime and I'll tell you what she really said....] but I say, who needs those big breasts? They're nothing but trouble! If I had much smaller breasts, I probably never would have suffered from such terrible yeast infections. My daughter, she has small breasts, and I used to tell her all the time how very lucky she was for being blessed with such small little breasts....."

For those of you who may have forgotten, keep in mind that I AM STILL IN THE PARKING LOT, for heaven's sakes! Trying to get inside the store! With my two very patient and innocent children! And somehow we fell target to this woman's unfortunate skin & breast complications. And the entire time, all I'm really thinking is....WOW. Nothing motivates me to grocery shop for food more than stories of skin flakes and yeast problems.

Eventually, I simply had to walk away from "Sue" but not before she delved into a very juicy Chapter 2 of her ailing woes, entitled "Having My Tubes Tied 34 Years Ago". I did a lot of smiling and nodding at her, grabbed Ben's hand and started walking as fast as possible in the opposite direction. Needless to say, the whole experience was downright awful. I've never had a stranger over-share such an abundance of repelling personal information in a 5 minute time span.

Once inside the store, an understandably confused Ben turned to me and asked, "Mommy who was that lady?" And I said, "Buddy, that was a crazy woman who spoke too much about herself and didn't know how to keep things private. And so when we get home, I want to talk to you about something called 'strangers', and why it's not okay to talk to them."

From now on, if I get approached by an older person, I'm going to pretend to be mute. Tough stuff, lesson learned.