The other day, I promised my six year old a trip to Chapters to choose a new book.

Before you send any hate mail, please know, we would almost always choose our wonderfully resourceful and always fully stocked, delightfully staffed, public library but on this occasion, Ellie was being rewarded with reading a rather lengthy novella starring Barbie and all of her scantily clad friends and at least three of her lovers.

We were proud of her accomplishments (Ellie’s—not Barbie’s) and I wanted to let her choose a book that would be all her own to keep her interest in reading and hopefully, monogamy.

Also, I had attempted to choose a book for her that was quickly refused when she saw the cover had princesses on it. When the man at customer service asked, “Reason for return?” I replied, “Princesses aren’t cool anymore.” He typed–“Not as expected.”

When we left the building, the snow was starting to blow. I guess I feel that is a necessary detail since I am going to need to blame something, anything on my decision to do what I did next.

I felt for my van key in my right pocket and clicked the graphic of an opened bolt lock my usual twenty-nine times until arriving at the van. I heard the clicking sound on our way and with my head down to avoid the wind gave a reasonable tug on the back, sliding door.

It took me about four seconds to realize the children fastened into the two five point harness car seats were not my own, nor were the car seats, the snack bag on the floor or the man’s voice coming from the driver’s seat. And who cleaned up all of our Cheerios?

Once I processed the scene for roughly another two seconds, I realized the voice coming from the front seat was giggling and repeating the word, “Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.”

Nope?

Nope—not my vehicle.

In fairness, I had parked nose to nose with his champagne Grand Caravan (with stow-and-go) and we had approximately the same amount of caked on dirt covering the usual sheen of the champagne. In retrospect, I should have asked him if he tries to avoid the back roads but we were all too busy running as fast as we could to our respective vehicles.

I apologized profusely while he shouted, “If you want any more kids, I’ve got two here!” I smiled back because in this situation, I would be considered the “perp” but I thought the offer of extra kids was taking it a little too far. Besides, I already had two others at home, what the hell would I do with five kids? How dare this guy whose car I almost climbed into.

When we got into our own vehicle, I tried to explain to Ellie the mistake I had made. She. Was. Not. Laughing.

Ellie: MOM! You told us to never, ever, ever, ever, EVER get into a stranger’s car.

Oh, but it’s okay for Barbie to have three boyfriends?