The Best Laid Plans

Retail nightmares aside, I am having a pretty good streak. Things are good at work, kids are doing great, kitty cat is fat, dumb and happy, Scott is fabu. Pinch me.

Then one evening in the doctor's office (don't worry, it's not one of those stories!) the kids are prattling on and on to the doc about a trip they are taking to Disney with Lars. (Don't laugh at the irony of the Disneyland Dad actually taking the kids to Disney...it is so much more pathetic than that!)

So the doc, playing along while she preps a syringe, asks when they are going.

They are kids. All that matters is that they ARE going. Dates are for someone else to worry about.

So naturally they both spew forth dates for the trip. Both in July but wildly different from one another.

But both dangerously close to the weekend I have planned in Baltimore that includes outrageously overpriced baseball tickets, hotel reservations and lots of money thrown out the window on must-have souvenirs and things like crab balls and funnel cake, for sure.

I am pitting out, natch.

So when the kids and I have a moment alone, I ask for specifics about the trip. They think they know the date of departure, but are a little squirrely on the return date details. I feel my Big Birthday Plans are in jeopardy. I confide in Patrick that we need to get down to the nitty gritty details tonight because I've planned something special and am worried that it conflicts with their trip.

And I know what you are thinking --- how could plans Lars makes in any way conflict with anything I plan?

There is one nagging thought...

Months ago, when we were hashing out the details of Spring Break, he mentioned that he might have a chance to take a trip to Florida in the summer but that it might require that he overlap a day on my week.

I hate to forfeit time with the kids for any reason, but since there is always a chance that I may need a favor from him, like for a bufoonery-filled canoe trip or the tail end of the Gal Pal trip to Arizona, I grin and bear a little intrusion. So I say, "Not a problem, let me know the details as soon as you can."

But try as I might I can not recall any details about a trip. Could he have planned something and not told me?

I think I know the answer to that...

Can I Get a Witness?

As I move closer to the register, I hear Patrick very politely order a medium rootbeer. Uses the key words, "may I" and "please" and makes his mother proud. Yay me.

To my complete disbelief, Miss Buckteeth Bad Attitude Weak Chin Charm School Flunky replies, "I need to wait on her first," and points her grubby little finger at the woman in front of me. The woman behind Patrick.

Before I can respond for Patrick, the woman in front of me turns to me and makes a face as if to say, "WTF?" and begins to say to Miss Buckteeth, "It's okay, I'm still waiting for my pizza." But I have begun to speak at the same time, and the woman realizes that Pat is with me, and there is even more reason not to wait on her first.

She snaps her head around mid-sentence and in total astonishment and says, a little overly loudly, and gesturing between Pat and me, "He's with you???!!!"

And then without waiting for Buckteeth to make yet another critical tactical error, picks up her tray and gets behind me in the line so as to force her to wait on Pat and me first.

I am clearly on fumes in the patience department, but swallow hard and ask Pat to order his soda again. Our last slices of pizza have been taken from the oven by the pizza maker who is trying to ensure chain of custody all the way to the register.

Pat gets his rootbeer, Buckteeth rings up our tab and mumbles a total. I whip out my debit card and hand it to her. Patrick has taken his soda to a table behind us and is returning for the tray. Bucky is handing me a folded stack of paper napkins and I am handing Pat the tray. The lady behind me is shaking her head. I would too but I have too much going on.

I look up at Bucky and notice that the Manager has finally come out to survey the situation. Wonder what tipped him off...maybe Pizza Maker.

I say to her as she stares with all the emotion of a marionette, "Can I get a receipt?" and then add "Or is that asking for too much?"

She flatly replies, "It is stuck in your napkins."

And I reply, in mock oh-silly-me-of-course-it-is-ness, "It's in my napkins! Why didn't I think to look there?" And as I pull them apart I realize it is not there at all.

I look up again and say "Pardon me but it is NOT in my napkins..." and would have asked for another but she beats me to the punch and says, "Well you must have lost it."

No, but I'm losing it now!

I look directly at the manager and point to her, and say, "I don't know where you found her, but she's..." and before I can begin the litany of unflattering descriptive terms, the woman behind me interjects, "RUDE! She's rude!"

And I add that this has been my most abysmal retail experience to date, that she is not only completely clueless, she is also uncommonly rude, and unpleasant and unapologetic about it. She walked away while I was ordering, gave away my pizza, and was generally a menace to the whole production. I tell them to forget about the receipt, I'll remember the number as vividly as I remember this hideous experience.

Thankfully, Pat is not bothered at all about the way his mother is carrying on. I suppose in the scheme of things, I pale in comparison with his grandmother. Buckteeth should be thanking the Patron Saint of the Unemployable that it was me and not Estelle who darkened her door today.

Moments later the manager brings the receipt over to the table and sheepishly tells me that it was on the counter. I reply"Thank you, I knew I had not misplaced it." I think to elaborate on his sub-par employee, but think better of it.

Oddly, the charge has yet to appear on my bank statements...I think Pat and I got a freebie for our trouble. Maybe Buckteeth is now working at the Chinese place across the way. She'd fit in nicely there.

One Bad Apple

We choose the Pizza place, Sbarro. Not great food, but a known, and a known with plenty of seating at that.

We get in line. There are two people behind the counter. One appears to be jovially making pizzas, and one appears to be incompetently handling the small customer base. Three people in the party ahead of us, and me and Pat.

The counter is about 10 feet long, and Miss Buckteeth Bad Attitude is struggling to keep up with the orders. I am not sure what the issue is. A slice of this into the oven, a slice of that next to it. An a la carte plate of stuffed shells onto the tray with the pizza plates. She seems baffled.

Maybe it is because the kids in the party ahead of us keep returning to the back of the line where there is a bowl of toasted pizza dough balls free for the taking. A more clever, intellectually agile person would have a) not gotten the existing customer confused for a new one, and b) might have thought to move the bowl of freebies to the end of the counter by the register so people would naturally move toward it in line. But that would be asking for just a little too much ingenuity.

What Miss Buckteeth Bad Attitude (and let's add Weak Chin for completeness) does do is remain completely befuddled by two paying customers. Me and the mother in the crowd ahead of us. Sensory overload. About to short circuit.

She looks at me finally and begins to take our order. I order Pat's two slices and watch as she places them in the giant oven. I begin to place my order for two different types of slices and she gamely gets the first slice into the oven next to Pat's while I begin to describe the second piece and prepare to point to it through the glass when she turns to face me.

But she does not turn to face me. She walks away. The crowd ahead of us needs to pay, evidently fairly urgently, and she leaves in the middle of my order.

The pizza maker, also seeming to be in disbelief looks at me. I say, "She just walked away while I was ordering." He stops artfully placing pepperoni on his latest pie and comes toward me. "I can help you. What had you been ordering?"

"Just one more slice," I say. "The tomato and spinach right there," I clarify, pointing to the last slice of that pie.

He places it in the oven promptly and goes back to pizza making, having been joined by another young man from the kitchen sent out to help Miss Buckteeth etc with the overwhelming crowd.

He asks me if I've been helped. I toy with a smart-assed answer but he appears to be as slow-witted as his coworker and refrain. This will be fine. Patrick is already down by the beverage end of the counter and is ready to enjoy dinner with Mom. I tell him that yes, I've been helped, thank you.

Miss Buckteeth barks an order at him and he turns to her terrified. I can't hear what she is screeching at the decibel she is using in the tiled restaurant, but what I observe is that he lumbers over the the big oven, and removes my second slice of pizza from it, places it on a plate and hands it to her for the other customer.

I guess she walked away in the middle of her order too!

I am completely, mouth-droppingly, aghast at this latest customer service gaff. I make some sort of unintelligible noise which gets the pizza maker's attention. Again.

I explain that my slice of pizza was just filched for another customer, and worse there isn't another pie of that type to make amends with!

He's as baffled as I am. I ask him to replace it with another similar piece that also has mushrooms on it and he sheepishly carries out the request.

I move down the counter toward Patrick and the slices start to come out of the oven.

But the games are just beginning.

Food! Glorious Food!

Later that week, I decide to go to the mall, a different one, with Patrick while Hil is at some inconveniently planned late afternoon midweek birthday party in another town 30 minutes away. (Note to stay at home mothers: Just because it is summer and the kids are off does not mean that all of us have gone on hiatus. I still have to drive home from work, fetch the kids from camp and trek to East Jeezus to get to your kids Putt-Putt gig just like I would in the middle of winter).

I have wrapping paper and greeting cards and all manner of nonsense to check off my list at this other mall. But first, Pat and I are going to enjoy a little contraband mall food.

We walk in the entrance nearest the Chinese place that always smells delightfully of egg rolls and bee-line to the door. There is a sandwich board menu outside and Pat and I are planning what each of us will get and what we'll share. Wonton soup, a couple of egg rolls, General Tsao's Chicken for me and Chicken and Broccoli for him. Skip the chopsticks, bring on the fork, knife and spoon. I don't have the dexterity to eat fast enough with chop sticks to prevent starvation tonight.

We go to the counter (this is the mall, no table service) and the lady comes out. I smile and cheerfully place our order. She shakes her head and says, "No!No!"

WTF? "No no" as in "what you ordered sucks and we suggest something else?"

I say "Pardon me?"

She opens the lid on her side of the buffet to reveal simply warm trays of water (My friend Joy would call it "a facial.") and looks at me to ensure I understand.

"You have no food?" This is the mall, and it is 6 pm on a Wednesday. I am sure I am in The Outer Limits.

"No, no!" (Here we go again) "Have food."

"OK then I'd like Wonton soup, a couple of egg rolls, General Tsao's Chicken and Chicken and Broccoli please."

"No, have sweet and sour pork instead."

I don't want sweet and sour pork. I don't want sweet and sour anything. I want Wonton soup, a couple of egg rolls, General Tsao's Chicken and Chicken and Broccoli.

She points to the pink congealing sweet and sour pork and smiles. "That what we have."

And I say "So you really don't have any food unless you are in the mood for sweet and sour pork?" And then add, "Nevermind, we'll eat somewhere else." We turn to leave and I stop to make one more remark. "You do realize that it is beyond my comprehension that your doors can remain open, in a mall, at dinner time, when all you have is that little pan of yuck and nothing else that your menu outside advertises, however falsely, don't' you?"

She takes her big spoon and walks away. I look at the only other patron, who evidently was in the mood for sweet and sour pork and she shrugs. Pat and I walk out.

Our choices in this neck of the mall and with what time remains before I have to retrieve Hil, are a cheese steak place with no seating and a pizza place with a few random salad and pasta items.

Do Your Ears Hang Low

Claire's Boutique - the fakey, faux furry, plasticky, turn your fingers greeny capital of the world.
Every eleven year old's dream.

Hil is pie-eyed as we walk in taking in all the possible ways to spend a pile of money. She is also terrified.

I assure her that I will hold her hand and that the girls will do both ears at one time so she only has to wince once. She is nearly hyperventilating.

We go to the register and tell the young man there that we'd like to have Hil's ears pierced. He seems a little reluctant. He is the only one there. Brittni has gone on break. Presumably to Orange Julius, not Cartier. He's going to have to do the piercing himself.

But from the looks of him, he's no stranger to piercing. Has a few himself...ears, eyebrow, you know. He also has the name "Ashely" tattooed in script on his neck just above his collar. His name is Bryan. None of this is making sense.

Except that he is totally cool with Hil and taking her methodically through the steps. These are the papers where Mommy signs a statement that even if your ears get gangrene and wither and fall off in little crusty pieces, we are not responsible...Here is the selection of studs we can put in your ear lobes. Ignore this section; these are for your navel and these ones are more for guys. Helps her climb into the very high chair (from which it would be tricky to escape at the last minute) and tells her that he is going to clean her earlobes with something cold.

As he's drawing the dots on her ears with a pen to mark exactly where The Thing will go, I am trying to recall my experience. Oddly I don't remember anything at all except the big metal thing that shot the earring into my lobe at the speed of light and made a horrible staple gun sound. Can't recall who was there or the name of the place or anything...all of it overshadowed by the prior attempt at piercing, done by my mother in our kitchen, in front of two of my friends, one of which nearly fainted when my mother got the sewing needle stuck half way through my uncommonly chubby earlobe and had to stop.

It is then that I realize that since Bryan is flying solo, he will have to do Hil's ears one at a time. In a panic I am rifling through the pile of papers I signed to see what recourse we have if Hil flakes after one ear. Can I come back and get one done for free later? Do I have to buy both earrings now? Can they take out the one real quick before a permanent hole forms?

Now I'm nervous.

I ask Patrick to take my my phone from my bag and mouth to him to get a picture when The Deed happens. I do not have a free hand. Both of mine have been grabbed and twisted in Hil's. Bryan is about to draw first blood and Hil is freaking out ever so subtly. Bryan has the patience of a saint and very quietly tells her that all the girls get one ear done and can't believe how easy it is and don't even hold anyone's hand for the second. Easy Peasy lemon squeasy. (He doesn't actually say that...)

I am recalling the meningitis vaccine scene this spring at the pediatrician's office. Don't bet your paycheck on this, Bryan.

Hil is wild-eyed. Pat is holding my smartphone up ready to snap a photo. Hil yells at him not to take her picture. He claims he's playing Doodlejump. She says she can see the screen of my phone in the mirrored pillar behind him. Damn, she's good.

I move to one side under the pretense of giving Bryan more room. I ask Patrick to come to the other side to be similarly out from under foot.

Patrick gets it. He knows he is to pretend to play a game I just pretended to find for him, and get a shot at just the right moment.

Hil closes her eyes and wrings my hands. There is a crunching mechanical sounds and then...nothing.

The earring is in, and Hil has survived. She is visibly relieved at how easy it was, just as Bryan had promised. Bryan does the other ear without fanfare and Pat proudly shows me his photo.

Hil is too ecstatic to care that Pat took a picture. She is down from the big chair and racing through the store placing all manner of earrings in a little mesh basket to the tune of $77.00 including the free piercing, studs and bottle of earlobe cleaning solution.

Hil has placed her dainty little feet on the road less traveled and is beaming in bedazzled glory. A far finer retail experience than the one I'd just had at Cartier.

Mall-content

Miss "Which twin has the real Toni" sizes me up from her side of the counter. I can tell she is not impressed with me.






Truth be told, I am not all that impressive today. I have come to the mall for some fairly mundane tasks on the way to an afternoon at the swim club. I have dressed accordingly. I have on a denim skirt, a black and white very vintage-looking Audrey Hepburn T-shirt and JCrew flip flops. I can tell she expects more from the attire of her clientele.






She could not be less interested in helping me. But between her and the guard, it appears she has won the booby prize and must wait on the dirt ball I evidently appear to be. Thank God my children are behaving.





She eventually takes the watch from me. With a look that clearly shows she'd prefer not to waster her time on me.





And then, right in front of me, she makes a Big Production out of examining it for authenticity. I am sure she has deduced that it is a fake. No one who owns a watch of this caliber would be caught dead in my outfit (Frankly, my hipster daughter, who is very hard to impress, approved of it, saying I am the coolest Mom at the pool! So there, Raffia Hair!)





I want to scream at her.





I want to scream that she needs to get a big two-handed grip on the notion that I am the one who owns a Cartier watch and she is the one working at Cartier. Sorry about your career luck, lady. Maybe you should have stayed in school and taken up something more than 18th Century French Literature for a major after your failed out of charm school and had to get a degree or a husband on the fly!





I take deep breaths and try to think happy thoughts that don't involve murdering anyone.





My immediate thoughts are to blame myself. I was the one who invited this discrimination. I am dressed for the pool, not Cartier.





But hello, it's the MALL!!! Miss Snootypants may be on the cool, serene side of the Cartier door, but that door is just steps from that of Spencers Gifts, and of Roma Pizza, and the kiosk that sells clip on hair extensions in 11 different colors. Hardly a gated community! If this were the Cartier in the lobby of the Ritz Carlton, or on 5th Avenue in New York, or the mothership in Paris, I might, and I mean might, churn out a little hype with my attire. But it is the mall - home to Kitchen Kapers and Sunglass Hut, and I'll be dipped in sh** before I get out the Armani to self park inches from the Turnpike to tease out a little customer service from Miss Piss Pot Retail Flunky.





Not that retail isn't an admirable career, but jeez, understand your relationship to the customer for heaven's sake! Your job depends on my willingness to spend money and time with you! Would it kill you to smile???





Miss Needs a Mood Stabilizer proceeds to ask me a lot of questions. She is eye-rollingly not surprised that I am not in their customer database. Then she tires of data entry and asks me to complete some stupid form which asks the same questions the answers to which she's been laboring at keying. Obviously didn't pass typing class either. I want to slap her with my flip flop.





She blandly informs me that the technician will be in on Tuesday and they'll call me to let me know what is wrong with my watch. I collect my receipt and turn to leave.





But Hil wants to show me some fabulous jewelry so I linger against my will and indulge her, hoping she'll relax about the piercing that's next on the agenda.





We browse for about 10 minutes and then proceed toward the door. The guard opens it for us. I turn to see that my children are indeed behind me, and notice that Miss Attitude has left my watch on the counter. Still. She cares so little that she will let it sit there while she labors at her typing assignment.





I storm out. I want to go back and tell her to show a little respect my caring for my watch as if it were her own, but don't. The pen is mightier. I am going to not only memorialize in my blog, I am going to notify her boss. True, I wasn't there to buy today, and her attitude ensured that I never would be.

Customer Disservice

With the big ticket items off my plate, I can concentrate on the little things. Wrapping paper, a card. Stuff like that.

And while at the mall, I can check a few other items off my lengthy list of "Things To Do When I Finally Have The Time and the Fortitude To Endure The Mall"

Hil has finally decided that she has the courage to get her ears pierced. She loves jewelry - she is my daughter, after all, and has amassed quite a collection of clip on types that would not conjure up images of Betty White, but has hesitated until now.

Ah the beauty of Middle School peer pressure. Only it can make you face your fears: Pinched and potentially bleeding earlobes, and the wrath of Lars who maintains that his wacko mother is the picture of purity because she never had anything pierced, including her ears. (The fact that she is as gaudy as any gypsy and smoked like a stack of course not tarnishing said purity...)

And so we are off to the Mall to subject our earlobes to torture and to get a watch battery replaced at the Cartier store.

My watch has been dead for two weeks, and yet I still wear it. It has been 1 o'clock on the nose for quite some time now.

I google the Mall tenant list for the ear piercing place nearest our friends at Cartier. Piercing Pagoda, Claire's Boutique, I don't care. I just don't want to spend the afternoon traipsing from one complex to another to get two itty bitty things checked off my list.

We are in luck. Claire's and Cartier are a mere steps from one another. (Cartier must cringe!)
This will take no time at all. We will still have time to spend a few hours at the swim club afterwards on this gorgeous sunny Sunday.

We put on bathing suits under shorts and Ts and head out, Cartier and earlobes in hand.

The mall parking lot is jammed but we find a great parking space (What are all these people doing at the mall? It is hot as Hades. The Air conditioning deprived must all be here for the free relief from the heat.)

Just inside the door is the directory and we are just about 20 yards from Cartier.

The guard opens the door for me. The kids take seats in the beautifully appointed seating area. I approach the counter where a prim woman in a dark pant suit looks miserable. Maybe its the Bad Hair Day she's having. Think "hemp."

I approach her and remove my watch. I tell her that I believe it needs a new battery; it has stopped.

She takes an overly long time to even look up at me. And she does not reach for the watch at first.

We are not off to a promising start.