WALK OF SHAME

Mugshot

We broke our no shopping rule on the week of Ryan's birthday. He was about to hit the big 2-9 and he was definitely feeling less than excited about it. Surely being showered with presents would provide him with adequate consolation.

Since he's a man and (yankee candles aside) he likes manly things, Charlotte and I did our shopping at Sportsman's Warehouse, of all places. I'd never been inside before, not even with Ryan to direct me, and apparently this was very obvious to everyone in the shop. I milled around for a while, feigning knowledge of what I was looking for and where I would find it. Miraculously, I happened upon the fishing tackle boxes, and after spending far too long umming and ahhing about which one to get I finally decided on one.

My perusing hadn't gone unnoticed and almost as soon as I'd put the box in Charlotte's push chair, an employee, who for some reason hadn't thought to pipe up sooner, pointed out the evils of my choice. He handed me an alternative, which I took, pretending that I'd almost chosen that one anyway. He asked me if I needed help finding anything else; at this point I showed him the list and he handed me off to another employee who knew where the tarps were.

By the time I was heading to pay I'd been helped by every employee in the store, as far as I could tell. Apparently when I'm in a sporting goods store  I suddenly morph into a damsel in distress. It was a little demoralizing, but I figured I wouldn't be seeing any of these people again so it didn't matter that that they found me ridiculous.

Everyone in there had either helped me find something, pointed out that I didn't know what I was talking about, or stopped to tell me how cute my daughter was. She was being particularly cute. Since the walls were adorned with animal heads she was making all of the animal sounds she knew as she pointed at them excitedly. If she wasn't growling or saying 'baaa' she was performing her fake laugh, or shouting 'Hi!' at the top of her lungs. Between the two of us, we wouldn't be forgotten any time soon. Thank goodness we wouldn't be going back.

Charlotte likes to carry bags, it's a thing she has. She was sitting comfortably in her push chair and as we made our way to the car I set the shopping bag on her lap for her to hold onto. As far as I knew, nothing unusual happened. As far as I knew she just clutched the bag merrily and maybe peeked inside it. I set the bag down in the car, strapped Charlotte in, and headed for home. Nothing out of the ordinary there.

At home, I emptied out the bag and got ready to wrap everything up before Ryan got home and saw it all. I'd wrapped a couple of items and then it dawned on me that there was something there that shouldn't be. 100 ft of red paracord. What is paracord, and why was it there? I couldn't answer either question. I checked the receipt to see if I'd bought it by mistake, but it wasn't on there; it definitely hadn't been paid for.

Charlotte got pretty excited about it when she saw the paraord sitting on the floor. With a 'yeah!' she grabbed it and proceeded to carry it around for the rest of the afternoon. I'm pretty sure that she swiped it from a shelf at some point. Maybe that was what all of the fake laughing was about. I think as she  held the shopping bag she simply popped it inside, saving it for later, and all right under my nose. And the security guards nose, for that matter. She's a stealthy one.

Needless to say, we returned to Sportsman's Warehouse far sooner than I'd anticipated. We were even greeted with a 'Welcome back' as we walked through the doors. I felt a bit like a 9 year old who'd stolen some sweets. I don't think grown women are often seen returning products they didn't pay for. If our first trip wasn't memorable enough, I'm sure our second one won't be forgotten in a hurry. Mother daughter thieving team;  I just hope this isn't the beginning of a crime spree!