Today’s thankful: That foot stomping wasn’t directed at me

A friend and I were talking a few days ago about our moms and how they would occasionally get angry in public. One of the few times I saw my mom get mad and do more than get quiet and walk away happened when I was about seven years old. We lived about ten minutes from the grocery, and mom had taken me with her to buy chicken to fry for my sister. I think it was her senior picnic or something like that. Anyway, we went to the store, bought the chicken, and got it home to find it was rotten. Mom took a deep breath, loaded me back in the car and drove to the store. We exchanged the chicken and took it home, only find it was rotten too. At that point, she didn’t so much breathe, and dragged me back to the car. At this point she was scary quiet, so I sat in the backseat of the station wagon and pretended I wasn’t there. Then the magic happened. When the store manager told her to go get another pack of chicken, my mother stomped her foot. I knew this kind of mad, and I felt so bad for the store manager, because he didn’t know what was coming. As I stood there openmouthed, she stomped and loudly said, “I don’t want any more of your damned, rotty chicken!” I had never seen an adult move as quickly as that manager came down out off of his perch to try to quiet my mother before she created more of a scene. I don’t remember how it turned out, but am pretty sure he managed to calm her down, because we continued to shop at that store. I was just impressed that he made my mom stomp her foot and lived to tell about it. As for me, I was just really glad I wasn’t the one to make her stompin’ mad.