In which I begin to sympathize with the Walmart Child Slapper

Not really. But, then again...

Today I went to the store to find a pair of capri pants. I have this great pair of pants that I dearly love which I found early in the spring. I have worn them constantly and I recently realized life would be grand if I had one or two more of these pants in one or two more colors. What was not smart about this plan is that you can not expect to go into a store three months after a purchase - and once all the fall clothes are on full display - and expect to find the exact same pair of capri pants in your size in great colors. I didn't think this thing through very well.

Disappointed that the only pants I could find exactly like my favorites were white. I don't do white pants. I have six very wiggly, squealing, wipe-my-chocolate-lips-on-your-white-pants reasons NOT to buy white pants. It's a commitment I made to myself many chocolate stains ago.

I did find a variety of capri pants NOT like my favorites which meant I had to try them on. I loathe department store dressing rooms. Actually loathe is too gentle a term for how I feel about the flourescent lights which add forty pounds and forty inches to my hips. Instantly. But, one must do what one must do if they hope to have capri pants late in the season. So, I mustered up my resolve and I went in.

While completely despondent over my thighs in a 3-way mirror, I heard some children running up and down the hall in front of my dressing room. Annoying little twits they were. I chalked up my annoyance to the roller coaster of emotion flooding me while staring at things that should never be uncovered under the glare of a flourescent light.

Then I heard it. A bizzare tearing sound. The kind of sound you hear in a fabric department when the ladies are cutting the good stuff. You, know how they put a little cut in the fabric, grab it in two fists and yank a perfect straight line tear right through the fabric? That was the sound. I, while wearing capri pants that looked like I had been poured into a bright blue wet suit that would have made Superman proud, tentatively opened my door and peeked out. There right outside my door were two children. Two girls approximately ages 9 and 11, I'm guessing. Old enough to know better, is what I'm saying. One was laughing while the other one was tearing FULL SHEETS of wallpaper from the wall outside my door.

It was one of those, "You're kidding me, right?" moments. I really couldn't believe these two little minions were so brazen as to destroy the wall in a dressing room while SURROUNDED by adult women staring at all their lumps and bumps under flourescent lighting. The gall.

While other people stood there speechless I, bolstered by the lack of circulation to my lower extremities, said in quite the firm 'teacher' voice, "You do not need to be tearing up that wall." Silence while she looked at the floor and her older sister stood there giggling... surely at her sister getting reamed and not at me in my bright blue spandexish capris. Then I boomed a little louder, "Go find your mother!"

It was then that she did it. She gave me the most evil glare. A glare that said, "I don't have to listen to you." A glare that said, "Shut up, stupid lady." A glare that said, "I can do whatever I want." A glare that said, "You're not the boss of me." It was a glare that spoke volumes. And, it was a glare that made me want to snatch her up, turn her over my bright blue knee and introduce her to the rod of correction.

But, unlike the maniac in Walmart, I did not act on my impulse. But understand the impulse, I do. I realllllllllly do. There is nothing that chaps my ample hide like a disrespectful, destructive, disobedient child. N.O.T.H.I.N.G.

Flibby was in the hallway of the dressing area and since I obviously could not leave the dressing room in blue spandex, I told her to go inform the store security that there was a little brat girl in the dressing room tearing up their wall. Then I shut the door. To say the little girls left at the speed of light, never to be seen again is a bit of an understatement.

Do I think they learned a lesson. Not even close. Lack of respect for property and lack of respect for adults are lessons that have been ingrained in their entitled little brains so firmly that a scolding from a lady in bright blue spandex had absolutely no effect, I am quite sure.

It's a little taste of what's wrong with the world today. That and the way my hips fit into bright blue capri pants prove we live in a fallen world.