Monday, November 27, 2006
Me being me
Yesterday all of the girls went shopping and left the men at the house to do man things. The ladies hit Kohl's, Walmart, Target and TJ Maxx. At Target right now they have a great collection of Hello Kitty stuff in their dollar bins. I picked up some cute little notepads. I gave Emma one to hold on to because she wanted it. She carried it through the checkout line; I had to ask the cashier the scan the other one twice to make sure Emma's was covered because I didn't want to take it away from her.

We moved on to TJ Maxx and I went outside for a moment to look for Noni. When I came back Emma wasn't holding her notepad anymore. SIL didn't really know she had it so she wasn't conscious of keeping up with it. Damn! We had that thing for all of four minutes! I couldn't believe it. I retraced her steps, looking everywhere for it. I figured it had been picked up by then and was lost forever. It was stupid how I mourned that little one dollar Hello Kitty notepad that I'd just bought for Emma.

I tried to let it go and moved on to the Christmas section. I glanced on the floor and there was the empty wrapper for the notepad! Ah hell, someone had found it and planned to keep it. Nice, really nice. I was bummed at the unfairness of life.

I rounded the next corner and what do I spy? A little 4 or 5 year-old clutching Emma's notepad. I had picked up the wrapper and was holding it in my hand showing Noni. She asked if I was going to say something? I thought, should I? Why the hell not!?!

I approached the mother, showed her the wrapper and said,"My little girl dropped her notepad and I believe your daughter picked it up." The girl hugged her mother's leg and buried her face in it. The woman checked her little girl and saw the notepad and took it from her. Then she took the wrapper from me and stuffed the notepad into it and told me "I didn't know" and started to turn away. I realized there might be a language barrier and she was misunderstanding me (I think she thought I was telling her the girl unwrapped an item from that store and was taking it). I said "Wait a minute, that notepad belongs to MY daughter and we'd like to have it back." She handed it back to me and I thanked her. As I turned away I could hear her questioning her daughter about finding the item.

I know I was well within my rights to ask for it back. I understand "finders keepers" and all that, but this was a wrapped item in a store and the girl should be taught that you can't keep something like that anyway. The little girl and the mother didn't know it wasn't a TJ Maxx item.

Even though it wasn't a bad "confrontation" I came away shaking like a leaf. You never know how these things will turn out and I was pumped with adrenaline. It did teach me that when something involves my daughter I have a few more cajones than I used to.