Judge Not, Lest Ye Be Stalked in the Soda Aisle
So I ALMOST started a fight in the grocery store today.
I'd left the list at home and there were special items on it for dessert and side dishes I'm making for a family dinner tomorrow. Also it was gaining on lunchtime, so I was hungry and harried. The Empress, who had been a doll all morning, loudly decided that she didn't approve of our decision to use a cart. She refused to be associated with us so long as we had said cart, crossing her arms and digging in her heels in the produce aisle. I had to haul her, howling, over to her father at the deli, and took the Kinglet with me to try to piece together what we needed.
When we all met up again, the Empress had been mollified by free cheese slices. However, the God-King had to put her down because his back hurt, and I refused to pick her up because I was pushing the cart -- and also I was still pissed about the cart thing. So she followed me through the soda aisle, lifting her little arms and whining "Up! Up!" To which I gave a firm "NO, I'm not picking you up."
As I'm maneuvering the cart around the center stacks, I hear a woman nearby say, "You are SO mean." Her husband glanced at her. "What, me?" he asks. She shakes her head and mutters, "No, the lady..." and heads off down the aisle.
So I'm distracted for a minute--the God-King asks me if he should take the Empress outside (God, yes, please), and I'm thinking about what kind of soda is most on sale, and what's next on the list... but then it hit me: Did that woman really just supermarket-shame me because I wouldn't carry my whining child?
I was like: let it go let it go let it go--nope. With the Kinglet now trailing along behind me, I wheeled the cart into the next aisle to catch up with Mrs. Judgy-Pants. "Hey!" I yelled. "Hey, lady!"
She turns.
"Did you really just pass judgment on me?" I said, fire building in my throat.
I was all prepared to give her a lecture--who the hell do you think you are you don't know me you don't know what we've been through today parenting is hard enough without people making passive agressive comments about stuff they don't know anything about why can't you just let people live their lives--when she gets this big ol' smile on her face and goes,
"Oh, no! I was kidding! I was actually proud of you for not giving in! My generation, we would have never gotten away with stuff like that. Good for you for being firm. I didn't mean to upset you..."
She COULD have just been backtracking to avoid a confrontation, but she seemed so sincere and bemused by it all, I believed her. I felt this weight fall from my chest. The next thing I know, we're comparing notes about surviving parenting, and it was all I could do to keep from crying in the damn grocery store. I told her how people could be so mean, how my son is autistic, how we had to put up with SO MANY MELTDOWNS in public places and so many judgy strangers and now my daughter and it's all so hard and look, look how quickly I was ready to start something because of everything I carry around with me, and how grateful I was that she was just trying to make light (although she did say she'd never do THAT again). I asked her if I could hug her. She probably thought I was crazy at that point, but she let me hug her, which was very nice.
There's something about hugging strangers in times of high emotion. It's the best.
Anyway, I don't know if the lesson here is "don't judge people, you don't know what they're going through" or "don't be snarky at people, they might come after you" or "don't be so stressed with life that you can't take a joke". For my daughter it's probably, "if you throw a tantrum in the grocery store you will get free cheese and also stuffed animals from the grabber game in the lobby".
It's all relative, I guess.