A Run in with the Parent Police

There I was in the middle of the bra aisle with the three-year old and two-year old in tow. I'd played it smart. I had both children strapped into a shopping cart of their own. I had them parked out of range of the merchandise.

I knew my size. I deftly hunted for the appropriate color, whisked it into a cart and weaved my way from women's lingerie to skivvies for the kiddies.

It was looking as if my underwear mission would soon be Mission Accomplished, but no.

Along the way I noticed this strange trail of plastic cards. "Hmm. That looks just like...my ATM card! My credit card! My driver's license!"

Grinning like a happy hamster, my two-year old demonstrated how the contents of my wallet had been strewn along like a plan Hansel and Gretel had hatched to help Mommy find her way back to the bra department by smoothly tossing the little important slips of paper and money in my purse up in the air like confetti.

Of course, I knew my priorities. I immediately abandoned my kids as I desperately tried to collect all my most important personal and financial tokens. You'd think I was a mad woman on a treasure hunt in the aisles of unmentionables.

Satisfied that I had retrieved all my things before my identity could be stolen, I returned to my children only to discover a 'helpful' fellow shopper standing there to inform me that my two-year old had stood up in his seat.

It was as if she thought I'd just decided to park my kids in the middle of nowhere and stroll off to browse and have a jolly good time.

Parenting Police are convinced that you should have never had children to begin with. They will shake their heads and cluck their tongues, offer you unsolicited advice about birth control or state the obvious.

"Your child is running through the aisles."

"You mean this isn't Disneyland?"

"Is it naptime?"

"No, they always scream like this."

"You must have your hands full."

"No, I just like to drop bottles of milk on the floor to see how fast it takes the clerk to call out, 'Wet spill in aisle three!'"

"Your son has a potty mouth."

"My husband and I think self-expression is $%#&*@ GOOD for them."

"These children are all yours?"

"So that explains why they keep following me home!"

Well, we made it to the checkout without anybody calling Child Protective Services. At least for now, sarcasm isn't viewed as parental incompetence.