Are We There Yet?
Mom feels pretty smug, but it is short-lived
Lori Clinch

I haven't always enjoyed going to a supercenter. No sir, back in the day when the boys were young, a trip to the supercenter was the anatomical equivalent of having my eyebrows plucked during a root canal.

My boys were like hellions in the produce section, like prizefighters near the eggs, and like billy goats amidst the condiments. While a smarter woman would have dumped them on an unsuspecting sitter, grabbed her shopping cart and run, I was a fool who always took my kids with me.

Then, by the grace of God, school happened. Instead of breaking up fights and counting to three, suddenly I, Lori A. Clinch, was able to roost with the adults. I could read the labels, pinch the honeydews and debate paper towels at length.

So, on a bright and sunny day not long ago, I did up my hair, applied my lipstick and prepared myself for a day of fun and adventure at Wal-Mart. I was all by myself - no kids, no husband, just me, a shopping cart and my charge card.

As I stood alone in the foreign-food aisle and contemplated my family's response to a tofu stir-fry, the husband of a friend passed by in an angry state as he pushed his 2-year-old in a stroller. While Roy scowled at the world, his little dear held her head back and screamed to the heavens.

"Hey, Roy!" I exclaimed as I chuckled at his dilemma.

"How's that goin' for ya? Huh? Oooh, wait a minute, did you see my cart here?" I bragged.

"Notice anything about it? Can you say unencumbered? That's right, I'm kid-free. Say it with me, Roy, 'Go, Lori, Go, Lori, you're childless!' "

He mumbled under his breath and stomped away.

I was standing in the produce section, studying bananas like it was my job, when I saw Roy's wife, Laurel, snatching her child from the clutches of the nectarines. Poor Laurel was nine months pregnant if she was a day and she was chasing her 4-year-old as she summoned him by his whole name, "Robert Lee Brudenheimer, you get back here with that cart this instant. Robert, get away from that, Robert you put that down! Robert Lee Brudenheimer, don't you make Mommy count to three."

"Hey-ey, Laurel!" I said in my smuggest of voices. "Got yourself some issues with the little man, I see. Is that hard? Do you hate it? I don't suppose you picked up the fact that the toddler section in my shopping cart is toddler-free?"

I knew these people had to despise me, but I couldn't help myself. I'd graduated from the world of public humiliation and I felt liberated. When next I saw Laurel, her husband had caught back up with her and the 2-year-old threw a shoe at the little Robert Lee Brudenheimer and it hit him square on the noggin, ricocheted to the side, and hit a child-free passerby.

I chuckled to myself in my child-free zone. I even went so far as to taunt them a bit in the check-out lane and then strolled to my car thinking life was good.

I should have known better. I should have known that God keeps track of things like gloating at others' expense and that He doesn't like it. Yet I honestly believed that I had moved on from embarrassing and public moments with the kids. I thought I was one-up on the Big Man and that there was little He could do to pay me back for laughing at others' troubles.

Still feeling smug, I pulled up to the school. I turned off the car, rolled down the window and was admiring the beauty of the day when suddenly I heard a familiar scream. I gazed out the window to see one of my boys grabbing another one of my boys by his backpack and throwing him off-kilter.

"You had the front seat yesterday, you idiot," the older one screamed at his sibling.

The younger one regained his footing, charged at his brother and took him to the ground. The two of them were rolling and fighting in a cloud of dirt for all eyes to see, and for a moment it seemed as if the whole world was staring. Suddenly they were on their feet and racing in my direction.

I turned the car on, put it in gear and drove away. OK, so my kids aren't done with their embarrassing moments. But that doesn't mean I have to claim them.

Meanwhile, it looks as if I'll be eating a little bit of crow with my tofu stir-fry.

Lori Clinch is the mother of four sons and the author of the book "Are We There Yet?" You can reach her at www.loriclinch.com.