As you know by now our days around the Overgard household are pretty relaxed and mundane. Now that its nice out we walk wherever we want to go – shops and restaurants are right down the street and the grocery store is a ten minute walk in the other direction.  Hopefully all this walking will tighten up my lower half before I need to slide that bikini on in a couple of weeks!

But I digress…Addie and I walked to the grocery store this afternoon and before we even walked through the doors we heard a kid SHRIEKING inside the store.  We headed to the school supplies section (no, I’m not prematurely buying school supplies for the Goose’s recent pre-school registration…sob) we are making her a “Hey! It’s exiting to go pee pee in the potty – poster” in hopes that getting stickers will make using the potty a little more appealing. My goodness, I am having a hard time staying on topic today!  Back to the shrieking…

The little boy was in the middle of the diaper aisle and had lungs like I’ve never heard before.  If he doesn’t grow up to be in the theater I will be stunned because he was D-R-A-M-A-T-I-C. He was about two years old and his poor mom was holding his younger sister on her hip as she searched for formula further down the aisle.  I’m not clear on what he wanted…maybe to leave, then to be picked up…then possibly world peace…whatever it was, it was LOUD.  I did my best to just go about our business and find our potty-poster supplies.  Addie kept looking at me like, ‘mom, what in the world is wrong with that kid?’ But I let her know everything was okay and asked her to help me pick out poster board.

I am not exaggerating when I say that every single person in the store could hear this kid’s antics.  People were looking, chuckling, peeking around corners to make sure some small animal wasn’t stuck under a pallet of water bottles…I can only imagine what was going through his mom’s head.  But here’s the point – she kept her cool! She just kept reassuring him that she was listening to him and letting him know why she couldn’t pick him up or leave the store immediately or provide intercontinental peace.  She asked him if he was done throwing his fit because she was going to walk to the registers and she would prefer it if he went with her.  And she knew that whatever the rest of us in the store were thinking, IT DIDN’T MATTER!  She knew that he wasn’t hurt or in danger and just went about her mothering like (I assume) she does everyday.  If I thought she could hear me I would have told her how great I thought she was.

Weird thing number two: On our walk home from the store we have to traverse a stretch of a pretty busy main road.  Once we turn into the neighborhoods its pretty quiet and peaceful but for this small stretch it’s loud with traffic and, today, wind.  So, I’m pushing Addie’s stroller with one hand and holding a cup of tea from Starbucks in the other and this woman walking towards us is pointing wildly a the stroller.  My instincts pop on and I’m frantically looking around the stroller at Addie to make sure she’s okay, then at the groceries to make sure they haven’t been falling out in a trail behind me…on and on.  When she finally reaches us she starts talking about how cute Addison is and how nice it is to see other pedestrians.  And then it gets WEIRD.  She starts fishing around in her purse telling me she’s looking for a quarter or a dollar and I am standing there in the wind/traffic trying to figure out for the life of me if she thinks we’re homeless and in need of donations…and then it starts. The talking.  Imagine this scene, I’d call it a conversation but it was pretty one sided.  This is what it sounded like to me – any of my responses will be in italics and if it starts looking like gibberish its because that is ALL I could hear…….

“Here’s a dollar for her piggy bank Little kids love putting things in piggy banks especially in these economic times Yeah, she loves putting money in her piggy bank I was born in 1952 and so that makes me old enough to be your mother Well, you have beautiful skin (keep in mind I thought this was going to be a quick passing conversation at this point) Oh, you’re so sweet I have these chubby polish cheeks and rosacea and I have had this bob for years my husband wants to know why they don’t call it a mike my niece has this perfect asymmetrical face and I tell her that she should cut her hair and she finally has its so fun to have kids they are such natural learners our son fslkjfhgkjhrk sldfj;eij ;isojg sldfijljlskdjf watched ren and stimpy as a little boy and understood the underlying irony my husband is a cpa mba and our son got all my my language comprehension skills and my husbands math skills now he goes to fancy schamncy bennet where they get two hundred dollar italian leather shoes and BMW’s and we get eighty dollar shoes and I asked my husband if I could have a little honda civic but I didn’t know it had manual windows and push button controls now my son drives it and is proud of all the manual things he took his ACT’s and scored a 35 in math and the the SATS before the essays he scored a 1500 but one kid got a perfect score and we talked about being happy for others accomplishments but all the BMW parents we so jealous Well, I have to get home for dinner, it has been so nice talking to you Oh, being born in 1952 I grew up with women’s lib and equal pay and I believe that Shkhekfjhkjdf sdfhoijaodihf dsjfnskehfalh Okay, have a wonderful rest of your day! I need to get going!

Does your head hurt yet? That was the abbreviated version.  Why did I stand there so long listening to this crazy woman talk nonsense? I guess I felt that she obviously needed someone to talk to and the last thing I wanted to do was hurt her feelings.  I’m a sucker for people like that.  I think I need to rethink my stance on random weird strangers…

Now we’re home and the only random weirdness we will encounter now is our own. And now its time for dinner…thanks for sticking with me today, I think I was affected by all the crazy!