Seriously, I can not leave my house without turning into an utter train wreck. I’m like the chaste version of Lindsay Lohan.
We went to a local paint your own pottery shop as a part of a new play group that I joined for the first time. I was really nervous on account of how I have a tendency to be totally awkward. When I got home, I dialed my best friend and left her a voicemail that was all “WHAT THE H JUST HAPPENED?” And this? This is only a fraction of how weird my morning was.
After we left, I thought we might wander in and out of some of the little boutiques on Main Street because Scarlette loves walking around stores with me. I took my cup of coffee and put it in the section of my diaper bag that holds sippy cups because most places don’t like you drinking in their stores and I WANTED TO BE COURTEOUS. My intentions always start out so good, y’all.
We walk in one store and are met by a gigantic cat staring menacingly down at us from the counter. Scarlette freaks the heckfire out, wraps herself around my legs and starts screaming “DOGGIE! NO! NOOOOOO! NO DOGGIE!”
For reasons unknown to us, Scarlette is terrified of dogs. Despite the fact that WE HAVE A DOG. Also, it was at this moment that I realized Scarlette has never seen a cat in real life.
I am trying to calm her down and I’m saying things that normal people say to frightened children, such as “Actually that’s a kitty cat! It won’t hurt you. Pretty kitty!” I was half expecting the lady behind the counter to chime in with some backup but she just says flatly “The cat’s name is Misses Molly.”*
“See? The kitty’s name is Misses Molly. She’s a nice kitty cat!” I say brightly to Scarlette.
“Actually, she’s really not” the lady behind the counter helpfully remarks as Misses Molly hisses at us.
So now Scarlette is afraid of both dogs AND cats. Awesome.
I take her by the hand and we meander around the shop. Scarlette, I mean. Not the cat. Cat’s don’t have hands. She’s really very good but I give her constant reminders not to touch anything lest she accidentally break something. “Oops, we keep our hands by our sides! No touching!” I would say as her fingers would reach out for the tiny little candle tarts I was eying. “YUMMY! COOKIES! I BITE!” she kept saying as I picked through the different scents.
In her defense, they were all stored in glass cookie jars and they are the same shape as cookies and they smell just like cookies. Some of them were just scattered across the shelf so I was attempting to keep her from actually eating them when I turned suddenly and my coffee fell out of my bag and burst open on the floor.
I was totally mortified. “I am so sorry. I can not believe I did that. Do you have any paper towels and I will clean this right up” I say to the lady behind the counter. She looks at me and simply says “No.”
That’s it. Just no. And okay, maybe she was totally irked at me for spilling my coffee but it was seriously such an accident. I totally wasn’t walking around drinking it or anything. I had really tried to take precautions against this very thing happening.
“Oh, I say a bit flustered, well, I have some wipes in my diaper bag probably.” I dig around in my diaper bag where I discover that I used the last of the wipes earlier, when we were next door eating cupcakes and I wiped the remnants of them off Scarlette’s face while sipping on the very coffee that was now puddling at my feet.
While I am rustling around for something to wipe up my spill two other cats come slinking out of the bowels of hell back room and start lapping up the coffee. (You think this story is crazy but IT GETS BETTER.)
So I do what anyone in my situation would do. I tear open a spare diaper and use it to soak up the coffee while Scarlette tries to climb up my back shrieking “NOO! NO DOGGIES!”
Finally, I throw a few candle tarts into a bag and go to pay, because I figure I need to buy something and get the heck out of dodge. The lady points to a tin adorned with a handmade sign that reads “Please Donate To Spay And Neuter Our Cats” and she says to me “Can you donate?”
And I was all “Um, oh is that for like, the animal shelter?”
And she answers “No, it’s for our cats. In the shop.”
I really didn’t want to donate but I felt a bit obligated considering I had just spilled my cup of coffee everywhere so I threw some money in the jar, scooped up Scarlette and made a beeline for the exit.
The worst part is, I was so flustered that I just sort of grabbed a handful of candle tarts and a couple of hours after turning the burner on this morning I realized that my house now smells exactly like an antique store.
It’s been almost two entire years since the first time I attempted to leave the house with my child and obviously I’ve not gotten any better at it.
*I changed the cat’s name in this story. I don’t even know why. Like I said, TRYING TO BE COURTEOUS.
