Say What? My Weird Experience at Target Last Week

I had a strange experience at Target last week. It was definitely a first for me.

The kids and I went to Target on Friday for…oh, who the hell knows what you ever need at Target, but you always walk out with stuff. You walk in for tampons and you walk out with a vacuum cleaner. It’s the magic of Target.

We had a great time at the store. The kids only walked into three or four people (as opposed to the usual eight to ten), so I was riding pretty high. Then we went to the elevator bank to take the elevator down to our car. We hit the down button, and one opened up across the hall from us. Inside was a woman who looked to be in her sixties.

Here’s where it get weird. We starting running towards the elevator, and this woman rolls her eyes and sighs. I’m not talking a subtle little eyes-up-eyes-down-plus-shallow-breath move, I’m talking a full-fledged eye roll with the head roll about one beat behind (following the direction of the eyes) and a big shoulders-up-and-down sigh.

Now, I am past the point in my life where I let other people’s opinions intimidate me. There was a time, many years ago, when an eye roll from a stranger would make me feel so humiliated and certain I had done something to mess up this person’s day that I probably would have apologized for just being there.

Those days are long gone. I don’t have time to put up with that kind of sh**.

So, I looked her in the eyes, raised my eyebrows and said, “_WHAT?_”

This woman walks off the elevator, turns back to me and says — and I quote — “I have a problem. I can’t be around children.”

Okay. Now, not only did she say this out loud, but she said it in front of my kids. I looked away from her and at my sweet, happy little goofballs. I was not going to let them feel “less than” just because this idiot had no mute button. I said, “That’s a shame,” and started pressing the hell out of the Close Doors button so we could get away from her.

Let’s take a moment, think back over what she said, and then come up with a few plausible scenarios for what her “problem” might be.

1. She is a registered sex offender.

This was Mike’s first choice, and it would make complete sense, except that if the conditions of your parole are so strict that you can’t even ride in an elevator with children and their mother, I don’t think that Target on a Friday afternoon should be your first choice for shopping. Might want to sign up for a little grocery delivery service. I hear Amazon Fresh is very good.

2. She has terrible child-related allergies.

Then absolutely she should not have been stuck in close quarters with us. I take Claritin for my allergies, so I know her pain! I mean, the headaches alone are almost unbearable. So, I can see her reluctance to be close to us if children make her eyes water. Sometimes, they make mine water too, but it’s not so much from allergies as from a feeling of complete and utter defeat.

3. She loves them TOO MUCH.

“Oh man, I would love to get in that elevator with you, but I have this problem where I love children too much! It makes me a little light-headed and is sure to make us all uncomfortable. So, please take your tiny angels and leave me here. Now go…just go!”

Eh. Probably not.

4. She’s a bitch.

And, we have option four. Based on the feeling I got from the whole interaction, I am going to say that it is a pretty safe bet that #4 is our culprit. In which case I would again suggest Amazon Fresh. If you dislike children so much that you can’t be in an elevator with them and feel compelled to tell their mothers about it, you need to stay home. Please. Don’t inflict your poison on the rest of us.

Anybody have something like this happen to them? Did you handle it with more class? Teach me.

Meredith Bland is the mother of twins, born in 2008. Follow Meredith on her popular, award-winning blog, Pile of Babies.