I've only been to jail once and it was for parking tickets so I don't even have a real criminal record so why are the police here?

As I've mentioned, I'm a struggling and not quite reformed Scrooge. Christmas still stresses me out to no end but getting stuff for the various nieces and nephews is actually kind of fun...I get to be creative and I get to hang out in toy departments, the kids like their stuff and at the end of the day, everybody's happy.

Fot the last 3 years I've gone to this cute little boutique store to get our nephews and nieces Christmas gifts. The people are super friendly, the gifts are creative and awesome, and they wrap everything for free. Perfect.

They had someone new working this year...and not to be a complete jerk, but the lady was clearly stressed out by the holidays. She had what I can only call "holiday hair." Like, when she woke up in the morning, she curled it and sprayed it and probably had it just so but throughout the day she probably kept scratching her head a lot and maybe running her hands through her hair 'cause she was all stressed out and she forgot she had hairspray in there so her hands probably got stuck and in the process of unsticking her hands she just created a knot so that by the time I came in to shop she was all big eyed with some weird half bird's nest, half faux hawk hairdo.

Anyway, I'm a super friendly girl and I won't be put off by bad hair so I smiled and said hi and proceeded to shop.

She looked at me like there were 15 toddlers in the store and I had just told everyone to eff off. Seriously. Like I was a really, really bad person. I kind of stopped for a minute but then I figured I was probably just imagining it...I mean, I have Dr. Seuss on my scarf! I wear flowers in my hair! I'm clearly a giant child and in no way, shape or form a bad person.

I picked out a couple of things and asked her if I could put them on the counter while I kept shopping. She stared at me all big eyed and crazy haired and kind of mumbled what was either "ok, sure" or "please don't kill me while my back is turned"...I couldn't really tell.

I put my things on the counter and smiled at her...like, maybe she was just REALLY stressed out and other customers were mean to her and maybe she just needed somebody to be nice,right? Wrong. Apparently smiling was NOT the right thing to do...she actually backed up a little bit. Um...ok...so I just kept shopping.

Then the police showed up. At first I didn't really take notice of them...I thought that they were there to shop or just do a random store check or something. Except that they stood off to the side...didn't really talk to the counter lady...just kind of chatted to each other...and waited.

I am the only customer in the store. For real. After a minute it becomes pretty obvious that the police are there because I'm there. I spend about half a minute trying to convince myself that no freaking way are they there for me because I have AT THE MOST 2 unpaid parking tickets right now and I'm pretty sure they don't send the cops to arrest you for 2 parking tickets, especially when you're Christmas shopping.(You have to have at least 10 ignored parking tickets to get arrested for it and even then they just issue a bench warrant...or something...not that I would know...moving on)

I considered asking the lady if there was a problem but she seemed to be pretty scared of me already. In my head I imagined myself asking her if there was a problem and her getting all scared and probably crying or something and then the police coming on either side of me and being all, "Ok lady, you're coming with us," at which point I would totally freak out because I watch a lot of cop shows and true crime and I know how easy it is to have a crime pinned on you, especially when your only alibi is probably going to be "I was alone in my house, watching The Pick-Up Artist on VH-1" which nobody is going to believe because everybody knows that if a crime is committed and you're suspected of it, nobody ever believes that you were by yourself, watching t.v. and especially not something as craptastic as "The Pick-Up Artist." So anyway, I didn't say anything to her...I just finished my shopping.

I took everything to the counter and she real quick shoved everything into bags. The gift wrapping stuff was behind her but it was pretty obvious that she wasn't about to do anything that would keep me in the store even a minute longer. She did nervously offer me some boxes to put some of the gifts in so that was a plus. I paid, got all of my stuff, wished her happy holidays and walked out the door and to my car. I looked back and saw the two cops walk over to the door and watch me get into my car...and they kept watching until I drove away.

When I got home I checked my shoes for poo, checked my face and nose for accidental boogers, checked my teeth for spinach, checked my clothes to make sure my boobs weren't falling out of my top or that my fly wasn't unzipped...nothing. Not that any of that stuff would make me a criminal but you know, when people are looking at you funny, that's where you start.

James and I think that I probably look like somebody who is a criminal...like I have a scary criminal twin running around who is terrozing small boutique stores and the cops were called so they could either catch me in the act or protect the freaked out faux hawk lady from whatever kind of scary, creepy stuff my lookalike is doing. Which, if I do actually have a crime committing twin, I'm totally screwed...like I said, I watch a lot of true crime and innocent people get put away all of the time and I already know they're not going to buy my "I was home watching t.v." alibi PLUS now my fingerprints are all over that store. I'm totally going to jail for Christmas.

See? It's stuff like this that keeps me from completely relinquishing my Scroogey ways...stuff like potential wrongful conviction.

P.S. A little advice for those cold winter days...



(found here)