Idiot Clown on Aisle Seven

I once found myself in charge of a three year old child. I don't have any children of my own so I’m not familiar with three year olds, but I did ask the little girl’s mother what to do, how to be responsible, and how to take care of this little girl for six hours. She assured me that I would do fine, and she asked me to also pick up a few items at a nearby supermarket.

Everything was going swell and we were having a fun day. We headed to the supermarket and the little girl and I were laughing and talking and I was pushin’ her around the grocery store when I encountered a lady near the meat counter peddling sausage. She had an electric skillet and was frying up some spicy hot chunks of flavorful, free food. I believe in making those grocery peddlers feel like they’re selling lots of their product. I know they can leave the store and use a computer to find out if they've increased sales that day and the week after, but by that time I’ve already made my getaway with the free samples. I’ll never actually buy the stuff, but I’ll make yummy noises and nod my head. Now this sausage was especially good, and the lady was quite generous. The first, big bite she gave me was yummy! I decided to go back for more, so I spun the shopping basket around and started acting interested in buying sausage. You know, breakfast is THE most important meal! Sure enough, she figured I’m worth another free sample so she gave me another great big ol’ bite sized hunk. My readers can see this one comin’ a mile away, right?

I shared a bite of this spicy hot sausage with the little girl. I knew by the look on her face that she didn’t like it, but when she started spitting it out I knew I had made a mistake. Then she started whimpering and crying and that’s when the sausage lady looked at me and asked, “You aren’t stupid enough to give that little bitty girl a bite of that Cajun-spiced, flamin’ hot, fire breathin’ sausage are you?” I hate rhetorical questions like that, especially when the answer to the question is, “Yes, I’m stupid. Duh! Can’t you see for yourself that I did something dumb? Do you have to make me verbalize it? Yes, I’m stupid! Let’s put it on the store public address system. ‘We have a special idiot clown on aisle seven.’ Now I feel even worse.” Instead of all that I said, “Yep.”

The poor little girl really had difficulty with that flamin’ hot sausage. She attracted a lot of sympathetic looks from grocery shoppers, and some women got involved with saving this little girl’s tongue with water and juice they had on them! and sometimes, in my mind, I see CPR being given by the store manager. However, it wasn’t really that bad; it was that embarrassing, though. The little girl forgot about it, I hope. I know I didn't.