A scary visit to Home Depot

For the past couple of weeks, we have been working on getting all the presents for everybody on our lists as well as all the cards sent out. (I’m terrible at getting Christmas cards out early!) For some time, Jennifer could not decide on what to get her dad for Christmas. Finally, last night, she figured out what she wanted to get him, and this particular thing is at Home Depot. So I told her I would take her to get it the next day.

We did not get out to Home Depot until after I was done babysitting today. We had some other things to do before I had to pick Jesse up from the preschool he was visiting today, so it was just as well.

When we got to Home Depot, both Jennifer and I noticed a swarm of seagulls flying overhead – right where we were in the parking lot!! It was really strange and kinda scary. When I parked the car, we sat there watching them fly in circles over us.

“What the heck?” I observed. I tried NOT to remember that Hitchcock movie, The Birds.

“They’re watching us!” Jennifer said with alarm. I didn’t entirely believe her but it was weird how they just stayed right above us. I started to wish there was some way for me to tell those birds, “WE DON’T HAVE FOOD!”

Eventually, I was about to shrug it off, joking that I hope they didn't poop on us after we got out of the car (wow, flashbacks to when I went to a high school in Northern California) and was about to get out of the car.

Jennifer, however, would NOT get out!

She encouraged me to park closer to the store so we could have a short run to get inside.

I parked in a closer spot and she said, “Closer! Closer!”

I moved closer still.

“Closer! Closer!”

I felt ridiculous pulling in and out of parking spots but, thankfully, the third one was enough to satisfy Jennifer.

We jumped out of the car and hurried inside Home Depot. After we got what she wanted to buy her dad, she said she wanted to get him a stocking stuffer, too. So we walked around some more looking for something but she couldn’t find the Right Gift. Finally, she looked at me and, still holding the item she intended to gift, said, “Let’s go.”

She was about to turn to leave when I said, “We kinda need to pay for that.”

She noticed the item in her lands, laughed over her goof then walked with me to get in line. After we paid for our purchases, we started walking out of the store alongside a man pushing a cart. When we got to the security gate, Jennifer suddenly reacted with alarm and looked around. I took this to mean that maybe the alarm had gone off.

We realized the man next to us had set off the alarm. Then I turned and realized that a store employee had grabbed a ginormous stick and was coming towards us! I took one look at that stick and freaked out. It scared me! I wanted to grab Jennifer and run. But instead, since WE were not the ones to set off the alarm, I hurried her out of the stare while employees swarmed the man with the cart.

Once outside, Jennifer shook her head, smiling and said/signed, “Dude was trying to steal something.”

“Did you SEE that stick?” I cried. “I took one look at that thing, thought ‘geez!’ and wanted to run!”

Jennifer laughed then, after some thought, she said/signed, “If you did that, they might’ve thought it was you.”

We both laughed over THAT idea. Then I joked, “Well, I DO have roomy pockets.”

Well, we had a good laugh over it, but part of me was still a bit shakened over the whole thing.