One day...maybe

A few years back I needed printer paper. I’m almost certain that Martin was still at home because I remember the urgency not just in being paperless, but in getting to the store and getting back home super f-a-s-t before something catastrophic happened.

My once enviable corporate fashion sense gone the day I started working remotely, I drove over to the local Walmart wearing a pair of fleecy-flannel pants. OK, pajama bottoms, if you insist. Leopard print, if you must know.  

By my calculation, I would not see anyone I knew as it was midmorning on a weekday. To ensure anonymity, I wore a knee-length raincoat, one of Martin’s baseball caps and my extra large sunglasses. 

I ran inside, grabbed two reams of paper and spotted the one open line. 

There was a young mom ahead of me with a little blonde cutie who was about preschool age. The daughter was focused on the candy at the end of the aisle until she looked to her right and saw me. She checked me out from head to toe and back again. She said nothing. Just stared. I don’t think she even blinked, inhaled or exhaled. Just stared the kind of stare that comes with X-ray vision. 

I forced a nervous smile. Kids at that age do that to me. Her response? She just stared at me, the new center of her universe.

Rather quickly it became all about me.

I’m thinking I’m probably the first Black person she has ever seen in her life. I’m thinking her little brain is coming up with a question about just that. I’m thinking she’s maybe three or four, old enough to form questions but too young to form them in culturally sensitive ways. I’m thinking she’s at that filterless age where her brain isn’t developed enough to control what comes out of her mouth. I’m thinking: damn, you, printer paper. 

Her mother, who at this point only knows that a customer is behind them, calls the little girl to her side as they are ready to leave, but the little dear isn’t moving. The mother looks to her left, sees me and I can see she’s thinking what I’m thinking: Uh oh.

Mom continues to call out to her daughter with no success. It is now officially awkward.

Finally, the girl opens her mouth and mom and I take cover as daughter points at me and asks, “How come she is wearing pajammers?”

In Anchorage that day they could hear the sighs of relief from the two women in the checkout line at the Walmart in North Conway, New Hampshire.  

Once I realized that the little girl and her mother had had The You’re-too-old-to-wear-jammies-in-public Talk, I deftly took over, “Well, your Momma is right. I needed to run to the store for paper and should have put on other clothes. Next time I’ll get dressed. OK?’’

The little girl nodded, satisfied with my explanation. Mom and I smiled a smile of both gratitude and relief that we didn’t have to struggle down THAT road.

On the drive home, though, I wondered with a certain sadness: at what point in that young child’s life will it no longer be about the pajamas?