I remember the day like it was yesterday. Well, actually, it was night. So I remember that night like it was yesternight.
It's like that with painful, awkward memories. They get etched into your noggin so deep that you can't shake them. I'm convinced that when I'm 98 and I can remember very little (except that time when I was five and I made little Stevie Harbaugh pee into a hole in our basement,) I'll still remember that night I took my son shopping at Martin's Supermarket.
It was that horrifying.
Everything was fine at first. My four-year-old son was sitting nicely in the seat of the shopping cart. The two of us chatted while we shopped. We rolled along picking up the essentials - Poptarts, peanut butter, and pancake mix were on his list. I envisioned myself being the picture of motherhood. I was still rocking a great hair day. The kid was looking super adorable and hadn't stained his sweatshirt at daycare. We were both in rare form.
We were moving toward the check out lanes. A sweet older gentleman had just given my child a nice compliment. My son had smiled on cue and said, "Thanks!" We hadn't gone another five steps when it happened.
My boy looked up at me, his big blue eyes twinkling under the florescent glare, and said, "Who are you?" Then, before I had time to react, he landed his next line. He leaned over to the right, saw the man who'd just talked with us, and yelled out, "Hey! She's not my mother!"
I stopped dead in my tracks. I couldn't move. The weight of every other shoppers' gaze was holding me in place.
"Stop it!" I growled out of the side of my mouth. Then, "He's kidding! He's mine!" I said through a nervous smile. "Seriously! I'm his mother!" I said loudly, trying to convince the teenage bagger and every other human within earshot. The lady rolling down the lane near me was eyeing me with suspicion. The manager was moving ever closer to the loudspeaker.
"No you're not!" my only child continued. "She's not my mother!" he hollered, waving at the grandma two cart lengths away from us.
I was starting to sweat. I hisspered to the seemingly possessed boy in my cart, "Stop this right now! It's not funny!"
That's when he unwittingly ruined his own prank.
He smiled.
That smile! It was cute. It was spontaneous. And it was his undoing.
I felt the whole store exhale.
Twisted sense of humor? His.
Time out time? His.
Punishment of no dessert? His.
Still happiest mother alive despite this horrible experience? His.
Seriously.
Oh, that is hilarious! I would've been mortified!