Thursday, October 22, 2009

Lovely Lady

I picked up my sons from wrestling last night and popped by Safeway for some chocolate. The sleeping issue is really dragging me down so I figured chocolate would make it all better. As we dug through piles of pink boas, balloons, tables with pink M&M's, pink toilet paper and other pink paraphernalia we managed to find the goody isle. I felt even worse because the new October Pink Fest always reminds me that nobody gives a fuck about my cancer or anyone elses other than breast cancer because it's not marketable.

Then my sons were all hyped up from all the adrenaline and testosterone raging around in their teenage bodies. They were asking me question after question after another freak'n question, bouncing around topics like they were in a verbal ping pong tournament and every sentence started with, Mum.

"Mom! My stomach hurts!", "Mom! Can I have a dollar?", Mom! What if zombies came right now in the grocery store!", "Mom! I think I have to go to the hospital", "Mom! I need a job!", "Mom! What if people see us with just this junk? They'll think we eat crap all the time", "Mom! Can I have an iced tea?", "Mom! I need a new snowboard!", "Mom! When can we...", "Mom!" ....etc, etc et-fucking-cetera.

My brain was in mental meltdown mode as I stood there blankly staring at the rows and rows of chocolate. The boys were surrounding me and taking up the whole isle chirping at me like giant baby birds.

The entire time there was an older woman in the isle also picking out treats. I was thinking, "Man, she must be annoyed at all of this commotion over one little purchase". Instead of yelling, "STOP NAGGING YOUR MOM!", like I thought she was going to, she said, "You should tell your mom she looks too young and pretty to be your mother. You boys are lucky to have such a wonderful, beautiful young mom".

They just stopped in their tracks gaping, mouths open mid sentence and looked at me like I was an alien... or like I was missing my head. Or like I was an alien missing it's head. They smiled back at her and said, "Um, yeah" (because they are actually very polite young men) and we went on our way.

We shuffled around and climbed through the piles of pink fluff again to get to the cashier to pay for our purchases and left.

It lifted my spirits and I was reminded what a great impact small gestures of kindness make.

8 comments:

Dig The Earth said...

:)

'Cuz I Felt Like It! said...

Kids are such pains in the asses, but damn they can be so awesome too!

Caroline said...

Walgreens is putting pink caps on prescriptions filled in the month of October.... EEEEEeeeeekkkkkk - I am runnning screaming from the room.

But it does sound like you do have nice boys.

Susan C said...

Do your boys say "Mom" in an annoying stacatto clip? My daughter does, and it makes me crazy.

What a lovely (and true) thing for that lady to say.

Anastasia said...

Awww, that's really nice. :)

BaldyLocks said...

They are pretty sweet. I hate it when I'm so tired and become the dreaded, "grumpy mom".

They say it in a really funny voice,"Grrrrumpy Mum!"

Susan, yes, you know that voice. That voice that makes every mother's head turn in the room because it all sounds the same.

Caroline, I'd have to draw the line at pink tops on my meds. I can't imagine getting ignored and irritated by my own medications! That's just cruel. To me my med tops would be saying, Nah na na na na, you had leukemia, who cares!

Captain Skulduggery Dug said...

Hey hun, Sorry I haven't been around much. Health issues of my own have stopped me from being all that chatty. Soooooooo tired.

Yay for that lady. I'd have given her a giant hug.

I hope your sleep gets sorted out soon.

Anonymous said...

You DO look too pretty and young to be the mother of 3 teenagers!