Hastiest Escape From a Public Market

From Julia

Hello Ms. Margot!  I loved your book!  It was so funny and
relatable!

I am writing to tell you why I deserve an award.  Let’s call it the
“Hastiest Escape from a Public Market” award.

I too, am a work-from-home contractor and empathized with your mention of
balancing working at home and keeping clients unaware of the chaos going
on just outside my office.   To this, I trained my children at a young
age to not interrupt me during phone calls.  Holding my index finger up
was our sign for “I hear you, you need to be patient and we’ll talk when
I’m done.”  And it worked really well.  Well enough that I was slightly
smug when folks voiced their admiration that my children patiently waited
to ask me something rather than interrupt adults who are talking.  Praise
and admiration can make a person heady, so naturally karma was bound to
intervene, right?

One day I was shopping at the grocery store with my kids.  My daughter
was about six and my son was three.  It was fairly busy as we finally
queued into the checkout line.  The checker and I were having a pleasant
conversation when my daughter tapped me, stage whispering “MAMA!”.
Naturally, l raised my index finger to tell her she needed to be patient.
As the checker and I continued talking, the line behind us grew, and
again, my sweet girl tapped my leg and stage whispered “MAMA!!” I held up
my finger again, slightly annoyed she wasn’t honoring our signal.  As our
transaction was wrapping up she tapped my leg a few more times.

I turned to her and said “Just a second!”, wondering why she wasn’t responding to
my finger cue.   The checker handed me the receipt and I pushed our cart
towards the door.  I turned to her and said, “NOW, what is it you wanted
to tell me?”   She looked up at me with her precious little face and said
“I wanted to tell you that Alec pulled down his pants and was shaking his
floppy in that little mirror back there.”   Yup, while I was carrying on
with the cashier my impish son was at my back, giving the folks in line
behind us quite a show in front of the shin-high mirror cashiers use to
see under your cart.

To this day I am pretty sure I’m the only person
who has ever left burn out marks on the floor with a shopping cart.

#wheresmyaward