Wal-Mart Moms

We've all seen them and judged. The haggard mothers dragging dirty, noisy, and often screaming children through Wal-Mart. We tsk, huff and sniff at the lack of discipline and order, bemoaning the state of humanity. Or, maybe it was just me that did that. And once again, I find life has a funny way of coming full circle: I have recently joined the ranks of the Wal-Mart moms.

A few weeks ago, I made the mistake of taking the boys to Wal-Mart to get the oil changed. I shopped, but was finished long before the car was, so we had to sit in the small, overcrowded waiting area for nearly an hour. While we were there, the following conversations and acts occurred, witnessed at close range by numerous people.

1. Evan decided that he was hungry. If any of you know Evan (or me for that matter) you know what this means. Food must be consumed immediately or our alternate personalities surface: tantrums, screaming, crying, grumpiness, irrationality and petulance abound. And, Evan displayed all of these traits, while intermittently attempting to steal candy from the register area and consume it when I wasn't looking.

2. We are potty-training Evan, and big-boy undies are still a novelty to him. He has developed a fascination with his ability to pull them down and up again. So, of course, while I was tangled up in complicated conversations with Wesley (details below), Evan decided that this was the right time to continue honing his big-boy dexterity. He pulled his pants and undies down, and stood there for a bit, airing out, I suppose. I have no idea how long he was there before I noticed. I looked over to see Evan treating the customers to a show, and to top it off, he was carefully examining his parts like he had never seen them before.

3. A man with very long hair walked in at one point; Wesley loudly asked, "Is that person a boy or a girl, Mommy?" (This ranks up there with the time that he asked the cashier, who was sporting a goatee and long hair, if he was Jesus.)

4. Evan started tooting, loudly. Which of course put me in the awkward position of having to ask the question, in front of everyone, "Do you have to go poo-poo, Evan?" Each time, he vehemently denied it, stating, "No, no poo-poos yet." I knew otherwise--we'd been down this road before--so I ended up having to cart him out, in my arms, with him screaming and batting at me, "Let me down! Let me down! I don't want to go poo-poo!" and haul him to the restroom, where, as we know, the acoustics are much more resonant. Wesley followed me, stating loudly on his way out, "I want to see it, Mommy!"

5. Cordially, the waiting room provided a coffee stand for its customers. And this is the time that Wesley decided to engage me in a detailed conversation about whether or not he can drink it, and why I don't drink it--a subject we hadn't broached with him yet. The first question out of the chute, loud enough for the coffee-sipping patrons to hear: "Mommy, if you drink coffee you're a bad person, huh?" Dismayed by his uncanny timing, I informed him that was not correct. "Then why don't you drink coffee, Mommy?" I chuckled nervously, throwing peripheral glances around me to gauge the attentiveness of the other customers. "Well, I just don't like it," was my careful response. "Will you get sick if you drink coffee?" At this point, a woman, coffee in hand, piped in with, "Hey, I drink coffee and I'm not dead." Wesley took this in, mulled it over, and decided that he wanted some. Insert a typical power-struggle here, complete with Wesley's finely-honed--and ear-piercing--whining, and his highly dramatic pouty-face foot-stamp. When it was finally settled, I heaved a sigh of relief, and turned back to my magazine to read more about the latest Hollywood break-up. Then I heard, "Will drinking alcohol make you sick, Mommy?" And it all started over again. I attempted a sheepish smile-shrug of the "Kids! What are you gonna do?" variety, tossing it out to the other customers, hoping for some empathetic or commiserative smiles, but got nothing. Steely faces. Judgmental faces. Faces I used to make at Wal-Mart moms.