I just can’t wipe that “I’m helpless and not so bright” wrinkle from my forehead.

After picking Harper up from preschool this morning, I drove over to the Hallmark store to purchase candles. I’m sure you can relate to this statement: When I’m all out of creativity and energy and I’ve just been to the doctor for what I believe is lymphangioleiomyomatosis, I sometimes throw my hands in the air, cough a bit, and purchase enough candles to heat our entire house for ten days.

As I coughed and sputtered into my elbow with an armload of candles and a three year old who really just wanted to run around touching and smelling things, the Hallmark lady asked if I wanted to stack my stuff on the counter until I was ready to bail.

Me: HACCKKKK! Thanks! Actually, I think we’re ready to check out. HACCKKKK! Excuse me! HACCKKKK!!!

Hallmark lady: Oh! Hello, little one! Is SANTA CLAUS coming to visit you this year?

Harper (still sort of unimpressed by strangers who speak to her with sing song voices): Yes.

Hallmark lady (very much into changing tone with each spoken syllable): What did YOU ask SANta to BRING you this YEAR?

Harper: A white kitty cat.

Me: Yeah. Santa and I have been going around in circles about it for quite some time. Apparently, it’s against the law HACCKKKK!!! in the North Pole to deliver live animals on Christmas, and he’s not so sure he wants to risk it. I keep telling him HACCKKKK!!! that I’m the boss, and I don’t really care about the HACCKKKK!!! laws in his country. He keeps snarling and throwing big shiny boots at me, HACCKKKK!!! which I believe is an insult.

Hallmark lady (singing. she’s actually singing at this point.): PerHAPS he could BRING a STUFFED kitty CAAAAAAAAAT, MOMMMMMMMYYYYYYY!!!!! HHHhhhhhhhMMMMMMMMM??????

Me: HHAAAAACCCCKKKK! Whoa there. Hey! I would have NEVER thought of THAT ONE on my OWN!!! God bless us, Everyone.

So, Harper and I left the Hallmark lady thinking that she saved our Christmas. And, whatever. I’ll let her sing that story to her friends if she wants. Because I’m cool like that. Merry Christmas. ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

12 thoughts on “I just can’t wipe that “I’m helpless and not so bright” wrinkle from my forehead.”

  1. Your posts have never actually made me gag before, Angie — but this one comes close. Why — why, I ask you — do adults *do* stuff like that. And no, I’m not meaning all the terrible-sounding hacking going on from your side of the counter.

    Chicken soup for you!

  2. 1. You ought to take something for that cough.
    (duh)
    2. I had a similar experience in the Hallmark store last weekend. The cashier was just TOO DAMN NICE right up until she forgot to put my cards in the bag and I almost left the store without them.

  3. take it as a compliment, they only talk like that to the cute ones! Now, when she sing-songed at you, I am pretty sure that was an insult and you would have been perfectly within your right to push her into the candle display and/or HACCCKCKKKK on her.

  4. Hallmark ladies are on Prozac.

    And I’m surprised she didn’t conveniently point out to your preschooler the lovely white Webkins kitty up for sale.

    You’re lucky there. :-)

  5. Hallmark ladies- way too much time on their hands. Almost as bad as the people at Starbucks. Don’t they know I’m not coherent/pleasant until AFTER I drink the coffee, of which they have already consumed momentous amounts by the time I get there? Colud they just take it down a notch (or seven, eight?)

  6. Sorry. I laughed. Giggled, even. You, even sick, are hilarious. Hallmark lady be damned. It’s still funny coming from you.

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  8. When I used to nanny, people would talk like that to my youngest girl all the time, and at one point, as we left a store, she asked me why people did that and I said “because they think you’re little, and grown ups do it sometimes because they think it’s cute”

    And her response was, at age 4 mind you, “well do they have to make those dumb faces when they do it because they look stupid.”

    Harper can join her club of small children who aren’t impressed by grownups using their baby voice.

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