I can laugh about it now....

There is a sweet woman who lives down the street. I'll refer to her as "Neighbor," since I don't know her name. She's in a wheelchair, she LOVES, I mean seriously LOVES kids, and she appears to have had a stroke or something. Her mouth is kind of frozen open and she doesn't speak very well at all - hence the reason I don't know her name; I'm terrified of asking her and not understanding her, then having to say "what" over and over, embarrassing us both. 

Anyway, a few weeks ago, I made the mistake of taking all three boys to the grocery store, and by myself to boot. Everyone and their mother also decided to go there at that time, so to state the obvious, it was extremely busy. The boys were in top form, meaning hyped up on little kid energy and driving me nuts. 

Well, we encountered Neighbor. I was heading for the checkout, mentally and emotionally gearing up to wait in line for at least 15 minutes with about 50 other people and my strung-out kids when I spotted her through the sea of bodies. As soon as I saw her, my instinct was to turn around and find some other way to go. It's kind of hard to explain all of the reasons I normally choose to avoid her without looking like a total asshole, so just go with it, okay? Anyway, against my better judgment, I made the snap decision to keep pushing the cart forward and just get my kids the fuckity fuck out of the store. 

Of course, she spots us and "beelines" directly to the boys. Did I mention that she LOVES kids? The two older boys see her and start screaming "Aunt Jackie" at her (thanks, "Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel"), she starts trying to say "Hi guys!" over and over to them, only she sounds exactly like Warren from "There's Something About Mary," and she's yelling it, too. This alone was enough to attract the attention of the 50 other people around the checkout stands, but in case it wasn't, the boys then started playing a game with her. 

It went like this: they run up and poke her, she pretends to scare them, and they scream and run away. Then they start all over again. 

So basically, two of my kids were running up to what appears to be a handicapped retarded woman, poking her, then screaming and running away. Adding to the picture, while pretending to scare them, she was shaking her head back and forth, her frozen-open mouth allowing slobber to splash across her cheeks, and making these loud "uuugghhhnnnn" noises. She was also leaning forward, pretending to "get" them, and a couple of times nearly fell out of her chair. 

I was dying. I swear to God, if somebody had asked me if those were my kids, I would have said no. Not because my boys were being jerks, but because it looked like they were. Now, while I am not personally acquainted with this woman, I know enough about her to know that she was having a BLAST with them - as they were with her. 

I considered putting a stop to the situation, but who am I to take away the fun of three people just to spare myself some embarrassment? Besides, I just wanted to get the groceries loaded onto the belt, keep Brandon seated in the front of the cart (he has a tendency to stand up) and get the eff outta there. So instead, I mentally thanked Neighbor for entertaining my boys long enough for me to get my groceries checked out, even though it came at the cost of my dignity. 

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