Becky Says...

June 2003

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June 15

The best part about going shopping this afternoon was that I missed the rainstorm. I noticed, as I was heading from one store to the other, that the clouds had arrived. By the time I got through in the second store and was heading to my car, the storm had ended.

The worst part was the unruly parents. Note that I'm not complaining about the children, since they weren't the problem. I knew I was in for unruly-parent day when I was in the drugstore, the design of which is long and narrow. A mother was near the front of the store, and wanted to collect all her children. She opened her mouth and bellowed, loud enough that anyone in the back of the store who missed the bellow was in need of a hearing aid.

Then the mother decided she wasn't quite through shopping, so she and all three children slowly made their way through an aisle. The children, having already been bellowed at the once, apparently decided to give their ears a break and stayed in seeing distance of her. But that didn't seem to her to be a good reason to lower her voice. She continued to make proclamations loud enough to be heard anywhere in the store. I guess the rest of us were supposed to be favorably impressed with her ability to tell each child without pause exactly what the child could buy, in great detail.

Only I wasn't favorably impressed. I was, in fact, some combination of rattled and annoyed at the spectacle. So much so that I put the one item I had planned to buy back on the shelf and left the store. It's not the store's fault, of course, and they won't totally lose the sale---I'll drop by another day. My sanity is worth the extra trip.

I'm just really glad I wasn't an ill person waiting for a prescription to be filled.

Unruly parent the second was in the grocery store, and was a father with two little boys. I think his unruly behavior stemmed from being completely unused to dealing with the boys without another adult along. Except for the fact that he wouldn't shut up even when the boys were not in need of the lecture, I felt a little sorry for him. At least he was just stopping traffic and lecturing in a normal voice. By going to another section of the store, I was able to avoid most of it.

I do wonder, though, if perhaps his two were trying to obey the bellowing woman in the next store. They did seem to want to go in that direction.