When Shopping Carts Attack

Or, how I got arrested in Toys ‘R’ Us

I swear, no matter how hard I try to be good, the gods are working against me.

Case in point: I manage to get a few minutes away from the children (thank you Grandma Rogan) and make it a point to get some early shopping done. So, I head out to Toys R Us and battle the maniacs. I’m standing in an aisle, looking over some stuffed animals (sorry honey, but they ARE still kids) when my cart slams into my side.

I look up, apology on my lips, thinking I hadn’t pulled my cart in beside me and was blocking the aisle. I HATE when people do that, so if I got slammed for blocking the aisle, okay. But when I look up, I meet the blue eyes of my arch nemesis, a.k.a. The Ex. Yeah, Leslie. In MY Toys R Us. Why the hell couldn’t she have stayed in Tennessee? I mean really, no reason for her to be here after all. She’s the one who foisted her child off on his daddy and never looked back. What the hell kind of trouble could she be stirring up now?

All I know is that I’m not putting up with this crap.

“Oooops,” she falsely apologizes, batting her fake eyelashes at me in a parody of remorse.

“Whatever, Leslie, now go away.” I turned my back and reached for a large stuffed moose before I smacked the crap out of her anyway. Forgive and forget, I always had to remind myself. Besides, not only did I have her man, I had her son too. When I was slammed in the hip a second time by my errant cart, I lost it. “What the fuck are you doing?” I bellowed, much to the astonished horror of a mother or two on the adjacent aisle.

She batted her plastic eyelashes at me again. “Don’t look at me, the cart did it.”

“Yeah,” I muttered, “all on its little lonesome too, I’m sure.”

Leslie grinned at me in a saccharine sweet sort of way and nudged her cart against my leg one more time. I dropped the moose into my cart and reached for the closest item. A life-sized stuffed baseball bat and swung, smacking her in the head. Being almost a foot taller than she, and a hell of a lot stronger, she flew backwards and landed on her little round ass, fuming. “You’ll get it for that,” she spat.

“Whatever,” I replied, pushing my cart off the animal aisle and went in search of a video game for my brother, the eternal child.

Security apprehended me on the Lego aisle and now Blake’s refusing to bail me out. Oh well, Shana said she’d be right over, I heard her in the background. She at least gets it, even if I won’t be getting any until my Cowboy calms down. But I’ve gotta admit… it was SO worth it.

And hey, don’t look at me, the stuffed bat did it all.