THE GRUMPY GRANDMA

It's a dark and stormy night....well Ok, it was a gray and dreary day, but either way it added to my mood today. I just wanted to stay in bed. But I couldn't.

After a long day of running around I ended it with a trip to the local Walmart. It's new here. It's a super store.

What that really means is that my exercise is now a walk from the parking lot to the front door rather than from my house to the park. Same mile distance.

And I am grateful, I guess, that our planet is going to be taken care of by the energy saving lights that leave you in the dark when you walk in.

But the staff is excited, friendly and although it's a much bigger store than the old one, I found myself spending twice as much time in it trying to find what I needed in the new layout. Of COURSE the seasonal stuff is between auto and gardening! Why didn't I think of that. Oh, but wait, where's the seasonal candy? Well duh! That's on the OPPOSITE side of this giant store in the main aisle by the food. If only I would have brought my "hero" cape to fly from one side to the other.

So now I'm exhausted and I've only checked off 3 of the items on my list. As I browse the valentine aisle, I find myself cart juggling with two other women, who are cart juggling back as we try and check out the goods. All is peaceful until...

Blood curdling screams ring out, stopping just about everyone in the store. The three of us look around, but do not see anything, but you can hear the patter of feet running. The two employees at the craft center, take a peek down an aisle, but quickly return to the counter. Then the screams happen again. They were not alarming but they did break the sound barrier. That's when we saw them.

Two young girls, maybe 10 or 12 running up and down the aisles, chasing each other, screaming.

I looked at the other two ladies, one rolled her eyes, the other sighed. Then I did it! Yep, I spoke first. I said, "I have no problem saying something if they come close enough." Surprisingly, one of the ladies said, "neither do I!".

As the screams continued intermittently throughout the store, fading in and out, we went about our shopping. As I turned the corner to the main aisle, slightly ahead of me was one of the shoppers I had encountered. The girls zoom around the corner and dart in front of her cart, then I see them suddenly stop, turn around and look at her for a brief moment, then calmly walk ahead quietly.

I picked up the pace and walked up next to her, and asked, "Did you say something to them?". She replied, "YES I DID!" I smiled and asked, "What did you say?"

She replied, "I said LADIES! Act your age, you are NOT 3 years old! Now move on and behave yourselves.!" As we both smiled, I replied with "good for you...and THANK YOU."

She let out a grin and said, "Well, it's OK for me to do that...everyone knows Grandma's are grumpy!"

While this is amusing, the tragedy was that I ran into them shortly after doing the same thing. I wasn't as kind, but I was polite. I discovered that they were hanging out at the store, until their parents got home from work.

I just can't help but wonder if one time I won't see their sweet young faces on the WALL of Walmart next to the other missing kids, rather than INSIDE it! *sigh*

PLEASE...parent your children!