People Are Weird

A few days ago, I had another Mama Bear Moment. I walked into my friend Shanel's salon, carrying the punk in his baby carrier with a blanket over the top because I was hoping that he would stay asleep for the duration of my hair appointment. As I walked in the door, I passed a lady who looked like a wet cat. Small frame, big eyes, and with hair and skin the same color yellow. She immediately turned to me and said, "Make sure to give that baby some air! That's a heavy blanket." It's a good thing I hadn't followed through with my original plan of covering the carrier in plastic wrap!

I sat down to wait for Shanel, and Cat Lady sat down in the chair right next to me. I had only had time to blink when suddenly, she was reaching her paw out to lift the blanket. I almost slapped her hand away, but instead, I said, "He's taking a nap, and I'd like him to stay asleep." She looked as if I HAD slapped her, but I didn't care. I could even hear him making waking sounds, and feel his little feet start to kick, but I wasn't about to lift the blanket now and subject my little guy to Cat Lady. She would probably want to hold him and nurse him and take him to live with her in a van down by the river. So I rocked the still-covered baby seat while she babbled unceasingly until Shanel was ready for me.

She asked me how old he was, his name, where I grew up, where my husband grew up, how long we had been married ("Oh, you waited 6 years to have a baby?"), if we had traveled before having the baby, and how we had met. When I told her we had met on a blind date, she proceeded to tell me about the "50 couples" she had set up on successful blind dates and her theory that sometimes couples are destined to meet by the hand of someone else. By the time Shanel had finished her previous appointment, which only took about 3 1/2 minutes, Cat Lady was jabbering on about how Scotland and Ireland are her favorite European countries because she owns the keys to several castles where she can talk to ghosts.