I was in the boys’ shoe aisle at Target when I officially turned into my mother.
As I sifted through the sandals for a size 6 1/2, I couldn’t help but overhear one of the clerks trying to page a co-worker.
“Jason in Electronics, please come to Maternity,” she said.
While I pondered what the heck Jason in Electronics could possibly be needed for in Maternity, I heard the clerk sigh.
“Jason in Electronics, please come to Maternity,” she repeated, but Jason didn’t respond.
“Jason, are you on Channel 1?” she asked, but heard nothing back. Meanwhile, I found a size 6 and a size 7, but no 6 1/2. While I tried to decide whether to go bigger, smaller or just head over to Wal-Mart instead, we finally found Jason.
“Jason!” the clerk shouted down the aisle. “I was paging you. Did you hear me?”
And at that very moment, I turned into my mother—my mother, who has taken to blurting out exactly what is on her mind because she’s seventy-one, dammit. And so she can.
“No, but the rest of us did,” I answered, and then I gasped and put my hand over my mouth.
Where did that come from? Sure, I’ve always thought such things. I’ve even blogged about such things. But I’ve never been the crazy woman in her workout clothes in the boys’ shoes aisle at Target telling Jason from Electronics what she thought of him and all the pages for him. I’m too young to turn into my mother. Aren’t I?
Then again, my mother is too young to turn into her mother, who decided at age eighty that she was old and could therefore say whatever the heck she wanted to whomever she wanted. Recently, my mom moved from blurting out her thoughts from Shoe Aisles in stores around northern New Jersey to telling folks face-to-face exactly what she thought of them and their hairdo/new coat/job/children/landscaping/dinner selection. So I guess it’s only natural that I must now take over the next rung down on the family’s Crazy Ladder, even though I’ve got a good thirty years until people like Jason in Electronics would dismiss my blurtations as Old Woman Talk.
Neither Jason nor the Clerk Detective seemed to notice what I’d said. They were too busy doing whatever it is that Electronics specialists do around Maternity clothes. All I know is that I left the store without any sandals.
Originally published on MommaSaid
