An Open Letter

Dear Mean Old Lady at Walgreen's cosmetics counter today. You are SO lucky there were Christmas decorations all over Walgreen's today to put me in the Christmas spirit. Cause if not, I would have probably gone postal on you. I am sorry, that as I was browsing your lotions today I was SUCH a bad Mom to let my 2 yr old explore and poke around at the collection of Burt's Bees products. I fully intended to clean up any mess she made or any bottle she knocked over before leaving the aisle. But you had to come over, take a look and inhale deeply, say "okay-yyy" and pick up a bottle she knocked to the floor. Even when I said "here I will put it back" and took it from you- you still proceeded to annoyingly straighten up and line up to an anal retentive-like perfection, every product that my daughter may have put her fingers on. Seeing your annoyance I called her to me, and had her stand next to me and not touch anything. But even that wasn't enough for you. You had to come over to my child and tell her that if any of those bottles she touched had been opened "they could have burned you very badly".

Ok first of all, Burts Bees is one of the gentlest product lines out there for children and babies. And even if it wasn't, there is no way in hell that ANY products that might potentially burn my child if they were accidentally opened, should EVER be at eye level height of children anyway. They should be on a top shelf. Heck I wasn't letting her touch bleach or hair dye. It was bubble bath for Pete's sake. Then you told me when I was ready you would ring me up in Cosmetics and as I walked over to pay you proceeded to say "see! see!!" and shove this sideways index finger in front of my face. When I replied "what are you showing me?" you responded by pointing out your nasty finger that was dry and dirty and looked like it was covered in red warts. "See... these burns all over my finger, this is what can happen. This is how you can get burned from shampoos or conditioners on your skin sometimes."

Oh lady, if you only knew how hard I bit my tongue at that moment. I actually had one of those nano-second day dreams where I saw myself telling you this. "Ma'am, I got your message loud and clear. You made it obvious you were annoyed with my daughter touching the products. And you were rude about letting me know it. However, I ignored your bad attittude and I removed her from them, cleaned up after her, and told her not to touch anything. I heard the warning you gave her about the possibility of being burned by them, and I didn't let her touch them again. Just to appease you, even though I don't need your help in Mothering her properly AND I knew what she was touching was perfectly safe. I did not hear your warning and decide to ignore it and hand my child something to play with. But you still felt the need to take it a step further and shove your nasty finger in my face to show me your burns/warts whatever they are. Not necessary. It is old(er) women like you that maybe have had a few bad instances with mothers letting their children run wild or make messes in your store and not clean up after them, that makes you like to treat us all like we are ignorant bad Mothers. But we are not. And if you already have this bad of an attitude and Thanksgiving hasn't even come yet, good luck surviving the Christmas season. Now ring me up so I can be on my way and skip the lectures."

But the nano-second was gone and instead I told you I hope your finger gets better soon. I paid for my goodies and left humming Christmas Carols in my baby girl's ear on the way to the car. :) YOU are not going to ruin my day OR my Christmas spirit. Maybe Walgreen's needs to start playing Christmas Carols over the speakers for YOU to get in the mood.

Sincerely,
Super-Mom