Quote of the Day, and a Lovely Lady at the Mall

After work today I packed up LuLu and Smiley and headed for the mall to have my wedding ring repaired. Somehow I'd managed to flatten the bottom of the ring, almost to the point it would've stood up on its own if it wasn't so top heavy.

On the way home I called Lisa.

"Yeah, they said it would be a week and I could pick it up next Monday night."

"A week? How bad did you damage it?"

"It hasn't changed since you saw it. I think they just wanted to send it to a goldsmith in Chicago."

"Oh. Well at least it'll be free."[we'd purchased the lifetime warranty back in the day]

"Yeah, but I'm really upset. It's the first time in twelve years that ring's been off my finger for more than a minute."

"Awww, that's sweet. But I know you love me baby.. . "

"Nah, it's not that. I'm upset this didn't happen the week you were out of town. You're really going to cramp my chances now."

"God, how long did it take you to think of  that joke?"

"Oh, about ten seconds after the jeweler told me the news."

Sighs. "Dork."

* * * *

I do miss the ring though. There's a depression around my finger that borders on a permanent disfigurement, like some poor Chinese girl's feet a hundred years ago. And I'm very very used to twisting it constantly. It's absence is  . . bothersome.

* * * * *
On the way out of the mall a black woman walked up to the three of us and said "Loretta! Pull it god da** it! MotherF*er pull the g***amned cord bit**."

Well now. Allrighty. Not cool to say in front of the kids, not that they even noticed.  I quickly gauged the physical threat level, dismissed her, and got on with enjoying my Aunt Annie pretzel.

Priorities and all. Besides, by now I'm used to kooks.

But on the way out I noticed that without meaning to, the woman and my fine trio seemed to be in sync, We turned, she turned. She went left in front of us, we wound up going left. At one point Smiley ran in front of her towards the escalator and I had to push past her, begging her pardon. She said she understood and said 'go ahead" polite as can be.

Ten feet later she began talking to Lorretta again. I noticed security quietly encircling our cozy group and decided it was time to get the kids back to the car. Still not upset, mind you, because this was diddly-poo. This isn't New York, but it ain't Mayberry either.

But the whole way through Boston Store we do the same joined-at-the-hip thing. Every time there was a chance to skip ahead the kids would want to stop and look at this or that, or jump on the giant shoe pics plastered on the floor.

We all walked out the door together, and the woman turned around, flipped the guards the bird, and said "See you later motherf**ers".

By now I've got a smile on my face because its pretty obvious this chick and I are going down together, Bonnie and Clyde style. I can't get rid of her, and now there's cops in cars following behind us. And no, I didn't want to stop walking, because I wasn't keen on the kids seeing more of the show.

It turns out this woman is parked three cars away from us, despite the fact that this is the largest mall in the state of Wisconsin, with a parking lot the size of Rhode Island. As she starts going off on the guards as her grand finale,  Lu starts to argue with me about where she should sit. Man, kids can be oblivious. I felt like laughing.

"Do you not see the crazy lady over there? Did you somehow miss the cops that were following us, or the  car that almost ran over Smiley? What do you think is going on here?  I really don't need to have two little kids get in my way if all hell breaks loose. Get in the bleepin' car"

And yeah, I'm proud to say I actually said 'bleepin'."