The "Big Lots" Story
So, I'm standing in line at Big Lots, waiting to pay for my new set of glasses. There are three or four people in line ahead of me and one lady with a little girl, maybe four years old, behind me. The kid's screwing around, chattering away, looking at stuff . . . doing the kinda things kids do, so I don't really pay any attention. Then she she starts laughing hysterically, so I glance over, see she's sitting in the floor, laughing for no particular reason (the way little kids do), so I turn back around. The mom apparently reacts pretty much the same way I do, making some comment about her being a silly girl. Next thing I know, the mom's tone has totally changed, and she tells the kid, "Uh, honey, you need to get up from there, that floor's dirty!" So, I'm thinking, what the hell, so I look over and immediately see what the mom has seen.
The little girl is sitting next to a display of those battery operated back massagers, the kind with a lumpy, fist sized handle and four lumpy little feet, and she has one in the floor, sitting on it like a sit and spin. So, mom is trying to get her up from the floor without drawing attention, but the panic in her voice is what caused me to look. So, I'm just trying to stay perfectly still, cause I'm about to lose it and that poor lady is already about to have a conniption.
Oh, but it gets worse.
The lady goes into this crazy string of Freudian slips,
"Oh, Boo, you need to get off of tha-- That's dirt-- You're dir-- You're gonna get dirty! The floor's dirty! Get up from there!"
Next, she leans over and tries to take the Vibrotron 3000 away, but the little girl hunches over and twists away to keep her mom from getting hold of it, which apparently hits just the right spot.
She starts doing the "Unnnn-huh-huh-huh-huh!" (okay, that's not a great representation, but you know what I mean) noise.
I think I'm the only one who noticed this whole thing, which, on the one hand, I'm happy for that poor lady. On the other, when the clerk asked me how my day was, I just didn't have the heart to tell her that it wasn't anywhere near as good as the kid's.
The little girl is sitting next to a display of those battery operated back massagers, the kind with a lumpy, fist sized handle and four lumpy little feet, and she has one in the floor, sitting on it like a sit and spin. So, mom is trying to get her up from the floor without drawing attention, but the panic in her voice is what caused me to look. So, I'm just trying to stay perfectly still, cause I'm about to lose it and that poor lady is already about to have a conniption.
Oh, but it gets worse.
The lady goes into this crazy string of Freudian slips,
"Oh, Boo, you need to get off of tha-- That's dirt-- You're dir-- You're gonna get dirty! The floor's dirty! Get up from there!"
Next, she leans over and tries to take the Vibrotron 3000 away, but the little girl hunches over and twists away to keep her mom from getting hold of it, which apparently hits just the right spot.
She starts doing the "Unnnn-huh-huh-huh-huh!" (okay, that's not a great representation, but you know what I mean) noise.
I think I'm the only one who noticed this whole thing, which, on the one hand, I'm happy for that poor lady. On the other, when the clerk asked me how my day was, I just didn't have the heart to tell her that it wasn't anywhere near as good as the kid's.