No borders

“Don’t touch the books, guys!”  I said in my best sing-songy voice.

We were deep into the bowels of Borders, wandering aimlessly, which is a BAD, BAD, BAD idea when your two companions are ages four and under.  I hardly ever venture into bookstores, I usually just buy my books off of Amazon.com, but I needed a particular book for my book club that was meeting, um, in three days.

I practically shrieked, but totally in a good mom sort of way,  “Let’s try over here!”  I was kicking myself for having forgotten the author’s name of the book I was searching for.  Also I was silently cursing Borders for not having any employees conveniently placed around the store for my own personal convenience.

That’s when I saw the little computer kiosk/desk thingy where a lovely Border’s employee was typing at the computer.  This was such a relief to finally find someone to help me, but I knew that I had mere seconds before my troops ran in opposite directions.

I approached the desk and waited for the woman to look around the computer screen and assist me.  Calmly I smiled, trying to act like I was in NO HURRY WHATSOEVER, while my children nearly knocked over carefully stacked displays of books.  Through gritted teeth I chirped, “Kids!  Please wait patiently for mommy!” I inched closer to the kiosk, completely nonchalantly, like…oh I love standing and waiting for you to acknowledge me while my children run amok!  This is totally what I wish I could do every moment of everyday!  Yet the woman at the computer was paying zero attention to me.

I really didn’t want to get my feathers ruffled.  Of course she must be researching very important information for another customer!  Yes!  That MUST be it, because surely she wouldn’t be purposely ignoring a frazzled mom with two small children who are getting dangerously close to destroying her store…AND she wouldn’t just be blatantly ignoring a paying customer!

A few minutes pass and it’s more of the same.  Me acting like la-la-la, this is a day in the park!, my children acting like juiced up apes, and the lady at the computer ignoring me.  Only now, the lady has gotten more squinty and is staring even more intently at the computer screen, but is still completely acting as if we are not standing right there.

I turned around, ready to pick up Ella who had decided to throw herself on the ground at my feet because I wouldn’t let her eat the crumb she found on the floor OH MY GAH, and when I turned back around the lady at the computer was WALKING AWAY.

I stood there, watched as she went to a nearly bookshelf, chose a book, then walked to the front of the store.  There were definitely quite a few curse words that passed through my brain that she hadn’t said something like, “I’ll be right with you” or something!  Anything!  I (sort of) calmly gathered Carson and Ella and decided to just walk to the front of the store and ask someone up there.  HUFF.  HUFF.

That’s when I noticed several of those computer desk/kiosk thingys all around the store as we made our way to the front.   Dim realization began to set in.  Some of them had people standing at them, people that were obviously not employees of the store.   I tried to ignore what I suddenly knew to be true.  I saw the Borders employee who had just ignored me standing at the front of the store, where she was suddenly not a Borders employee at all, but a customer waiting in line to pay.

Oh don’t mind me!  I’m just the idiot with the wild children, standing too close to an unsuspecting stranger at a computer when there are a plethora of OTHER computers placed conveniently around the store that I could have used, but somehow hadn’t noticed!

She must have thought that I was a complete wacko.  She would be right.

(Hey!  Let’s practice walking backwards while mom’s head spins off!)