I try to be a kind Christian woman, but I am a flawed work in progress. As the imperfect human I am, every once in awhile, I snap. And I mean SNAP! —as in I explode in the blink of an eye before my brain has the chance to shut that mess down. It generally is a spectacle of impressive proportions.

It really doesn’t happen often, but apparently losing my mind does occur often enough for it to have its own entry in the family lexicon–Going Lowe’s. On the day this term was born, let’s just say I might have had a problem with a Lowe’s customer service clerk who may have continued to take calls and talk to her coworkers instead of just taking the ever-loving wallpaper book from me even when my toddles ramped up to cage match combatants in my shopping cart. I was STANDING RIGHT IN FRONT OF HER. I was there, I was needy, she should have helped me first!

But there is an unexpected twisted layer of awesome running through Going Lowe’s: it can take on the festive trappings of the season . . .and news flash: It’s Pumpkin Season! Don’t you roll your eyes at me. Roll. Mmmmm, pumpkin roll. I could really go for some of that right now. But don’t forget, pumpkin isn’t only for gourd-gasmic gastric delights. There’s also pumpkin pedicures, pumpkin lip gloss, pumpkin parking lot rage . . .

It all began innocently enough in the grocery store parking lot. I was behind my vehicle, stowing my purchases when I heard a “CRUUUUNNCCCHHH.” Since the van next to me was backing out of its space, I popped my head around the side of my SUV quicker than a chipmunk scouting out a pumpkin seed and locked eyes with Mr. Lazy Pants. (Why the heck he wasn’t looking over his shoulder or into his rearview mirror while his van was in motion is beyond me.)

I was relieved my driver’s side mirror was intact, but my annoyance ramped up quickly when I realized Mr. Lazy Pants had run over two ginormous plastic soda cups that he had so slovenly placed on the ground two inches from his wheels. It would have just been ridiculous for him to walk around his vehicle and dispose of them in the trashcan that was RIGHT THERE. It was no concern of his to rocket sticky caffeinated corn syrup up on my car so it could drip on my new boots when I opened my door.

So I may have popped an eye roll of my own. Okay, I did.

Apparently, channeling my inner adolescent brought out the best in Mr. Lazy Pants’ middle-aged copilot, too.

She leaned over his girth to shout out a very clever, “Got an eye problem?” following by a chin thrust/lip curl contortion.

I saw red or maybe more accurately plaid. I was instantly transported back to the seventh grade Catholic school playground where I was taunted every day.

Oh, but this wasn’t seventh grade, and I have lived a lot of lives since then. In one of these lives, I was a medical student in inner city Baltimore. People joke about crack addicts? I delivered their babies. Ever hear the urban legend of the man with the gun in the ER? Yeah, I was there. You think you know prison because of Breaking Bad? I had to ask those guys to turn their heads and cough.

So my inner badass has developed quite a bit since the time I was trapped in knee socks and pleated skirts. With the muscle memory of someone who has been bum-rushed, by well, bums, I reached into the closest bag, hefted a can of pumpkin and reared back like a right fielder whose trade value depended on the throw. I was “Going Lowe’s”.

Well, apparently Mr. Lazy Pants just needed the right incentive because that man had some pep as he peeled rubber out of the parking lot. The look on his copilot’s face is filed in my mental Rolodex under “Things to Make Me Laugh on Desperate Days.”

I can understand her confusion. I’m not exactly packaged as a psychopath. Heck, I had even showered that day and had on real pants. It just goes to show, you should never judge on appearances and you should always be careful who you mess with. You never know, she just might be packing pumpkin.

-Ellen

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