mean old lady
I don't like confrontations and will avoid them at all costs but today I did something I've never done before. I shouted at some mean old lady in the parking lot of our grocery store.
It was me and my 2 boys. I had Callum in one arm and was holding Aidan's hand with the other. Aidan has this plastic tractor I said he could bring in with him. We're walking in and stop because there is a car pulling out of a parking space. Meanwhile Aidan drives his tractor along a foot of the plastic bumper of the car we're standing behind. I tell him that isn't our car and not to do it again. He doesn't do it again and we start walking. Mean old lady (MOL) gets out and looks at her bumper, I think "whatever" and keep walking. Then she says something in an angry voice and the only thing I hear is "A-hole." I stop. I just turn around and stand there, waiting for her to notice me. She's in her car at this point and is doing stuff for the next 5 minutes. Then I think she litters as she throws something out the window. I start to get closer to see if she has, she reverses, looks at Aidan and says "stupid kid."
I am furious and say "WHAT?" She yells "Did you see what he did to my car?" and I yell right back at her "He didn't do anything to your car!" She yells something else that I can't make out as she drives away. ARRRG! I am shaking for the next 15 minutes and almost crying in the store. I called dh after I strapped the kids back in the car and was in tears talking to him about it. I stood outside of the car when I talked to him, I didn't want Aidan to hear all that. He just didn't understand any of it. He was trying but thought I was being mean to the MOL, he couldn't understand that she was being mean to him.
I looked at her bumper as we walked by, no marks, nothing. As if Aidan's plastic tractor could have scratched her plastic unpainted bumper! He's not a stupid kid, he is simply a 3 year old. kids are just kids. It's not like he was hitting her car with the tractor or was trying to do any damage. He is such a great boy and she had absolutely no right to say that about my son. She doesn't know him!
If she had said something about me I would have just been flustered but avoided all this but because it was my son, I felt protective. I felt like I had to stick up for him. Looking back on it now, it seems like it didn't happen. It was so surreal.
dh asked if I got her plate number, I thought about it but then thought, what would I do with it? dh said he could have found out where she lives. Then what though?
I felt so bad for Aidan that even though he didn't have any idea that she was so mean, I let him eat 5 oreos on the way home. I still feel terrible. He's such a wonderful person. He's relatively calm for his age and no kicking tantrums or anything like that. He's thoughtful and caring. He loves everyone and tells them so. Why did this woman pass judgement so quickly on a three year old?
It just makes me sick.