So Says The Mouse In My Hair

Crazy

Ok, so I know that everyone thinks that their family is the craziest one in the universe, but I might have a legitimate claim on the title. I mean does your dad dress up like Buffalo Bill and stage imaginary Wild West shows on the lawn? Does your older sister stage Save The Platypus marches in the halls of junior high and expect fellow students to give a whit? And my mom? Let me tell you a little story about my mom.

I thought it was just another trip to the supermarket. I figured, we go. We pile things in the grocery cart, we put them in bags, we leave. That’s how grocery shopping works, right? And things were working so smoothly until we got to the paper products.

"David, honey, can you pick me up some toilet paper?" she asked me.

So I went to get some. Mom gets the green Soft Aloft toilet paper, which I never really understood. Why green? What does it really add to your bathroom that white toilet paper doesn’t?

But there was no green Soft Aloft. That was weird. I pulled down a package of this blue green color and went to catch up to my mother who had made it to dairy.

"Here you go," I said, and put the TP on top of the box of cereal.

She looked at the toilet paper, and she looked at me. "David, this isn’t green. Go find me the green. And put this teal crap back on the shelf."

Crap? Now, that’s harsh language for my mother. I didn’t understand what there was to be getting upset about, but she was working on it. Great.

"I looked for the green, Mom," I replied, "it wasn’t there."

"Of course it is, honey. It would be right next to this."

"It’s not. I checked. This was in between the blue and the pink. NO green."

She turned her cart around and headed in the direction of the Aisle 10. "You just have to look harder David. When are you going to learn to take your time and double check things?" cruising down the aisle we came to the toilet paper. She stopped in front of the rainbow of Soft Aloft.

"Here we are. Now, orange, pink, teal, blue, yellow… Where’s the green? The green’s not there."

"I know. So this blue green is close enough, right?"

"Teal, David. It’s called teal. You should always call things by their true name."

Blue green sounds like a true name to me, truer than teal anyway. what's with those random names of colors that no one can figure out?

"Whatever, can’t we just get it and move on?" I asked. Mom’s cart was in the middle of the lane. Some girl was coming up behind her, plotting a way to get by, not having much luck.

"No David, this is not the time to settle for second best. It’s the principle of the thing." That was one of her favorite things to say. It came up a lot when she felt indignant about something, mostly during arguments with my dad. "It’s time for you to learn about principles."

"In the grocery store? Can’t I learn about them when we get home?"

The girl rolled her eyes and decided not to wait for my mother to move. She pushed her cart over to the edge of the lane and squeezed by. These aisles must be wider than they look.

"But that is not the present. And there is no time like the present to learn about principles."

And with that she sat down on the floor and crossed her legs like an Indian.

"Mom, get up. You can’t sit on the floor here. I don’t think it’s allowed."

"Sweetheart, I think you’d be very surprised by what they allow in supermarkets."

"Well even if they do, it’s not cool. Please, can we go home?"

"There are more important things in life than cool, David. How many times have I told you that?"

An old man in one of those wheelchairs you can get in the store that have the steering wheel and the basket in the front was coming down aisle 10 now.

"Excuse me, ma’am," he said, "I need to get by you for some tissues. Would you mind moving over a bit?"

"I’m sorry, I can’t do that."

"Mom!" This was worse than not cool now. This was embarrassing. And we were going to get in trouble. "He’s just a nice man who wants to pick up a couple groceries. Can’t you please let him by?"

"Honey, when you decide to take a stand—or a sit in this case—the most important thing you can do is not cave in to outside pressure."

The man rolled his eyes. There must be something I could do.

"What kind of tissues were you looking for?" I asked him.

"Puffy Dreams, the biggest box they have."

I scooted around Mom’s blockade and grabbed him a box.

"I’m awfully sorry about her," I said on my way back. She was humming something and rocking back and forth, oblivious to us. "I just don’t know what to do."

He nodded. "Thanks for your help son." And he set off back down the way he came.

"Mom, I think you’ve made your point by now. Can we please, please go home? I’ve got homework to do."

She shook her head. Not allowing me to do homework? I really don’t know this woman.

Someone else was walking our way now. A tall young man in a button down shirt and a blue tie, he was wearing a badge that said, "Ted: Store Manager."

"What seems to be the trouble?" he asked. He was looking at me, so I pointed to my mom. Her head snapped towards his voice.

"You have no more green Soft Aloft. Were you aware of this situation?"

What kind of a question was that? He was the store manager, of course he’s aware of the situation. They know everything, those store managers.

"Yes ma’am," Ted replied, "It has been discontinued. Soft Aloft has stopped manufacturing their green toilet paper."

"And you just let them? Who cares about the customers who depend on this product. If it'’ not making any money, just pull it. How can you be so shallow?"

I wondered if this made any more sense to Ted than it did to me. Apparently not. He looked at me for help. My face was getting really hot, which meant that it was getting really red. I wanted to go home.

"You all right buddy?" he asked me.

I shook my head. "I had nothing to do with this. I just want her to get up. None of it makes any sense to me either."

He nodded. "What’s your name?"

"David Farthing."

"And you’re how old?"

"Eleven."

"I remember when I was eleven. My dad bought a bunch of old airplane seats and a movie screen and set them up on our front lawn. He wanted to charge all my friends to come watch. I was supposed to sell concessions."

"Crazy," I replied. I was getting to be an expert on the subject.

"Excuse me," Mom interrupted, what do you plan to do about this Soft Aloft situation? As a loyal customer, I demand action on your part."

"Well Mrs. Farthing, I can’t allow you to sit on this floor forever. You are stopping other loyal customers like yourself from shopping, not to mention the publicity from news crews that will most likely be arriving shortly. I’d like to settle this quickly. Is the teal so bad?"

"Young man," my mother snapped, "have you ever been in my bathroom?"

"No ma’am."

"That is correct. Because if you had been in my bathroom, you would know that my hand towels are green. Further more, you would know that that toilet paper," she flung her arm accusingly in the direction of the shopping cart, "has no business being in the same room as green hand towels. The clashing would plunge me into deep depression from which I might never recover."

So this was about hand towels? Hand towels! Crazy doesn’t cover this. Poor Ted.

Poor me.

Meanwhile, the lane was becoming more crowded. Gawkers with carts or baskets of groceries were pooling at either end. And was that a video camera? Great, the news was here. All my friends were going to see my crazy mother on TV. Not good.

Ted was thinking. You could see the gears working in his brain.

"Hmmm, hand towels. Well Mrs. Farthing, there’s only one way I can see to end this amicably."
My heart leapt. The ordeal was almost over. Life might go back to normal, or at least the weird version of normal that we usually settled for at my house.

"Now," he continued, "you are not going to be able to go back to green toilet paper. But if the only impediment is hand towels, then I would tell you that all you need is new hand towels."

Silence.

Mom blinked. She frowned. She squirmed. I feared. She shrugged and said, "Ok."

Clapping and cheering and whistling from the crowd. People began to file down the aisle for those groceries they hadn't been able to get to. Ted was receiving pats on the back and congratulations from customers. He deserved them too, talking my mom out of her insanity is just as noble as talking a suicidal jumper down from a window ledge. Ted was going to go places in life.

And as for us? Well, two weeks later my father informed us that we were moving. He’d found this great place in rural Maine. Got a great deal on the house and five acres of land because it was right next to the landfill. Crazy?

Crazy.

posted by Sarah Eliza @ 7:15 AM