So we go into a local fabric chain store to buy a zipper and bias tape. Easily find the zipper, then have to assess 18,000 varieties and persuasions of bias tape. (Who knew there were, or that one might need this many options?) Sister Middle has to immediately go to the loo. Assures me it cannot wait. I hurriedly grab the closest bias tape in "It Will Have To Do" Pink, and pay the personality-less cashier. (NOTE: Sales associates everywhere, if you see a Mama with three children, one of whom is clutching the business district of her clothing, for the love of all that is holy, let them use your bathroom. That Mama will not only bless you, praise you, and mention you personally to management, she will likely spend additional time in the store and double or triple her initial intended purchase. Husbands should disregard that last part completely.)
Carry Little One on one hip, butting the door open with the other and scramble down the sidewalk with two big kids following. One of which is holding the bag of hastily acquired notions. We locate a bathroom in a nearby department store, only to find that only one stall is remotely functional. In we go, with Sister Big declining the invitation. Through the closed door I can hear the whistle of plastic shopping bag being swung in an ever increasing rotational speed and request nicely that it cease. It does not. I ask once more, with less gentility, and still to no avail. Finally I trot out my best crazed person voice and hiss that it "better stop this instant!" It does, but at exactly the same time that I realize we are no longer in the facility alone. (It's very challenging to peer through the crack of a restroom stall and not look creepy. I'm reasonably sure I didn't pull it off.)
The newly arrived individual gives all the audible cues that she is there for an extended period of time, but cannot get down to business until we leave. A demure defecator, this one. The repeated throat clearing, sighing, and handbag itemization are all registered on my end. It's not that I don't get the signals, but I've my own issues in stall three in that Sister Middle can't/won't go with Little One looking at her and is trying to argue with the toddler about her need to turn and face the wall, away from anything happening at the potty. Alas, Little One is fascinated with the potty, (as long as she does not have to use it!), and is unable or unwilling, (or both) to look away. I have been forbidden to open the door and stand on the other side because it would be too scary and someone might see her privates. So here we stand in complete eliminator gridlock.
Sparing you the details of all that transpired, we are finally able to leave the restroom and I for one feel many things, but not rested. I take the bag of supplies from Sister Big and realize that it is suspiciously lighter than previously. Sure enough, the zipper is missing. Nobody has ever seen it, nor knows what a zipper is. We backtrack the parking lot, to the restroom, and back to the sewing store where we ask Ms. Personalitectomy if we could have left it behind. She assures me with brevity that she too has no idea what a zipper is, nor has she ever seen one. SO helpful!
I purchase the zipper (again), and grab the elastic and ribbon I didn't have time to pick up before our emergency mission. The cashier and I exchange no words at all. (My favorite way to spend my money actually. Please, please, do not in any way acknowledge that I am shopping in your store and supporting your paycheck's arrival each week.) All and sundry load into the car and we depart for home. Mercifully, the wee one is sleeping soundly enough I can possibly slide her into the crib and finish this project today, this nap time even!
Well, all I can offer is that somewhere in my Vera Bradley bag lies a magic portal into which sewing notions go never to be seen again. I emptied the thing, turned it inside out, even tunneled through the compartment that holds the cardboard sleeve that give the bag a bottom structure. Nope. Nothing to be found. So to date, I have purchased two zippers, two packages of elastic, one package of bias tape and one spool of ribbon and all I have to show for it is one unfinished toddler dress that Mr. Unscripted has pointed out would have taken some child in a sweatshop less than thirty minutes to make had I chosen to simply buy a dress.
So, the next time you are out, if you find a small trail of sewing notions, looking ever so much like Martha Stewart and Hansel and Gretel have had a wrangle, please know that I am nearby somewhere, probably peering through a crack in a wall and trying very hard to appear well-balanced. Please feel free to leave the bag on my car's windshield. You'll know it's mine. One door will be only partially closed, with a seatbelt protruding from it. There will be no fewer than nine pairs of shoes on the floor, and possibly one lying on the pavement outside the door. And, the interior will be liberally seasoned with goldfish crackers. Or, feel free to look for the Mama who appears to be about lose her bananas publicly and the children who are respectively singing One Direction, The Wiggles, possibly telling a poop joke, and throwing their shoes to the street whilst screaming "No!"
Come to think of it, that sweatshop is looking better and better all the time.
Carry Little One on one hip, butting the door open with the other and scramble down the sidewalk with two big kids following. One of which is holding the bag of hastily acquired notions. We locate a bathroom in a nearby department store, only to find that only one stall is remotely functional. In we go, with Sister Big declining the invitation. Through the closed door I can hear the whistle of plastic shopping bag being swung in an ever increasing rotational speed and request nicely that it cease. It does not. I ask once more, with less gentility, and still to no avail. Finally I trot out my best crazed person voice and hiss that it "better stop this instant!" It does, but at exactly the same time that I realize we are no longer in the facility alone. (It's very challenging to peer through the crack of a restroom stall and not look creepy. I'm reasonably sure I didn't pull it off.)
The newly arrived individual gives all the audible cues that she is there for an extended period of time, but cannot get down to business until we leave. A demure defecator, this one. The repeated throat clearing, sighing, and handbag itemization are all registered on my end. It's not that I don't get the signals, but I've my own issues in stall three in that Sister Middle can't/won't go with Little One looking at her and is trying to argue with the toddler about her need to turn and face the wall, away from anything happening at the potty. Alas, Little One is fascinated with the potty, (as long as she does not have to use it!), and is unable or unwilling, (or both) to look away. I have been forbidden to open the door and stand on the other side because it would be too scary and someone might see her privates. So here we stand in complete eliminator gridlock.
Sparing you the details of all that transpired, we are finally able to leave the restroom and I for one feel many things, but not rested. I take the bag of supplies from Sister Big and realize that it is suspiciously lighter than previously. Sure enough, the zipper is missing. Nobody has ever seen it, nor knows what a zipper is. We backtrack the parking lot, to the restroom, and back to the sewing store where we ask Ms. Personalitectomy if we could have left it behind. She assures me with brevity that she too has no idea what a zipper is, nor has she ever seen one. SO helpful!
I purchase the zipper (again), and grab the elastic and ribbon I didn't have time to pick up before our emergency mission. The cashier and I exchange no words at all. (My favorite way to spend my money actually. Please, please, do not in any way acknowledge that I am shopping in your store and supporting your paycheck's arrival each week.) All and sundry load into the car and we depart for home. Mercifully, the wee one is sleeping soundly enough I can possibly slide her into the crib and finish this project today, this nap time even!
Well, all I can offer is that somewhere in my Vera Bradley bag lies a magic portal into which sewing notions go never to be seen again. I emptied the thing, turned it inside out, even tunneled through the compartment that holds the cardboard sleeve that give the bag a bottom structure. Nope. Nothing to be found. So to date, I have purchased two zippers, two packages of elastic, one package of bias tape and one spool of ribbon and all I have to show for it is one unfinished toddler dress that Mr. Unscripted has pointed out would have taken some child in a sweatshop less than thirty minutes to make had I chosen to simply buy a dress.
So, the next time you are out, if you find a small trail of sewing notions, looking ever so much like Martha Stewart and Hansel and Gretel have had a wrangle, please know that I am nearby somewhere, probably peering through a crack in a wall and trying very hard to appear well-balanced. Please feel free to leave the bag on my car's windshield. You'll know it's mine. One door will be only partially closed, with a seatbelt protruding from it. There will be no fewer than nine pairs of shoes on the floor, and possibly one lying on the pavement outside the door. And, the interior will be liberally seasoned with goldfish crackers. Or, feel free to look for the Mama who appears to be about lose her bananas publicly and the children who are respectively singing One Direction, The Wiggles, possibly telling a poop joke, and throwing their shoes to the street whilst screaming "No!"
Come to think of it, that sweatshop is looking better and better all the time.
