You see, there I was, wandering Fred Meyer, in my kidnapping costume (which obviously consists of jeans and a t-shirt, because when you're kidnapping babies, knee high boots with six inch heels and a cute flippy vintage dress just aren't practical, ya know? Mostly because babies will smear just about anything on you. And I'll stop there, because I have my boundaries, you have a wonderfully developed olfactory imagination, and I'm a kidnapper, so obviously I'm very busy stealing babies and I don't have time to be describing the ins and (hem hem) outs of babies shmear.) Anyway, there I was, doing my weekly grocery shopping at Fred Meyer. I had stuck Ellie in the cart so she could happily bounce on her little diapered rear while pointing at all the grocery items on the shelves. And that was my Rookie Kidnapper Mistake #1: Being Seen With A Baby.
Next, I naively pushed my cart to the check-out lane and proceeded to unload all my kidnapper food: tofu, wheat germ, Braggs Liquid Aminos, baby wipes, quart sized Ziploc bags, Halloween candy (in which to lure more unsuspecting sugar needy kids, obviously) and other such items while giving the older gentleman in the next lane a friendly smile as he gave my cart a weird look. (Which, naively again, I took to be a what-is-she-some-freaky-vegetarian look, rather than a oh-my-goodness-she's-stolen-somebody's-baby look. This is why I don't buy candy.) And that's when I made my Rookie Kidnapper Mistake #2: Making Eye Contact.
Quicker than I can say "I drive a Honda Civic, not a scary kidnapper Honda Odyssey!" I was being circled intimidatingly while having menacing questions thrown at my head by the, now, rude old guy from the next lane. "Where did you get that baby?" "Did you get that baby in Kansas?" "How old is she?" "Is that the baby from Kansas?" Bewildered, it took me a minute or two to figure out what the guy was talking about, before I could even try to assure the man that Ellie was indeed mine! Luckily the nice lady in line behind me threw in her support of my non-kidnapper status, or I think the guy might have actually called the police!
Lessons learned. So, next week, when I head to Fred Meyer to do my grocery shopping, Ellie's totally going in disguise:
Because I've never been accused of shoplifting either.
