One Step At A Time

He swaggered into the grocery store with knee stains that indicated he'd recently played in the dirt.  If there was any doubt of that, one look at his finger nails confirmed that half the sandbox had come to the store with him.  His nails, thick with dirt, were hard to miss because one of his fingers was so far up his nose his eyes were crossing.

My guess is the young man was about 5 years old.

Mom was still wrangling a shopping cart as the boy I came to know as Dennis made a beeline to the grapes in the produce section.  Several had been eaten before his mother arrived calling his name loudly.

And so began Dennis' supermarket adventure.

I soon found myself behind the pair in the cereal aisle unable to pass as they haggled over Fruit Loops and Lucky Charms.  I was in no rush so I paused and tried not to laugh out loud as nonstop pleading for both poured out of Dennis' mouth.

When mom finally won the cereal box battle, she pushed her cart down the aisle as Dennis pouted with both hands on his hips eyeing the Pop Tarts on the opposite shelf.

I was finally able to move past him when it happened...

My brand new rubber-soled, quasi geriatric looking flip-flops squeaked and sounded remarkably like a giant, um, well-- there's no other way to say it--  It sounded like a giant fart.

Dennis heard and was immediately hysterical running down the aisle laughing and shouting at the top of his lungs "Mom, that lady just farted!"

I did not-- had not-- would rather have turned purple before I did such a thing in public.  Seriously!  It was my shoe, actually the sole of foot against the rubber of the flip-flop's sole-- but it out came as a "foot fart", like the sound of an "armpit fart" that boys Dennis' age would make.

Mom looked over her shoulder at me.  I'm not sure which one of us was more mortified.  As she used her hand to muzzle him, Dennis wiggle away, ran back to me and asked, in an excited voice, to show his mom and "fart again".

I was frozen in my tracks afraid to move.  If I was going to vindicate myself, my flip-flop would need to "fart" on command.  If it did not, well, then I was really just a big stinker in the eyes of Dennis, his mom and the crowd of shoppers we were now drawing.

Mind you, these were brand new flip-flops and the noise had never happened before.

Dennis was practically apoplectic so I had him take one step at a time with me.

Step one... Nothing.

Step two... Nothing.

Step three...Hello foot fart!

Step four, five, six... Jackpot-- Foot fart... fart... fart.  Dennis was in foot fart heaven proving his case to his mother as true.  He never figure out it was my flip-flops, rather he just thought there was an old lady at the market who could fart on command.

His mom, red-faced, rolled her eyes and mouthed "Sorry".  I saluted and finished my shopping with a few random shoppers high 5-ing me along the way-- Although I'm not exactly sure why.

I paid for my groceries and made my way out of the store as quickly as possible-- on my tip-toes-- so as to avoid any further embarrassing moments. 

Just another day in paradise...

Welcome to www.TheFiftyFactor.com  -  Joanna Jenkins
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