I went shopping at the local mall on Saturday, as I do most every weekend. It’s just a way to relax and unwind after a busy week. Normally I end up buying things for my family and just browsing at things for myself. However, if there is one thing I’m weak for it’s shoes. And when I can’t decide which pair of shoes I like, there always seems to be a black pair calling my name. Today, though, I was able to resist the black suede pumps that were oddly similar to two other pairs I already have at home. The sales woman was getting a bit irritated because I couldn’t make up my mind after she had brought out the fifth pair.

For me, shopping is serious business. It requires a full stomach, a clear mind, and I must feel good about myself in order to see myself in the item I’m about to purchase. When I go shopping, I’m usually dressed pretty casually — jeans, blouse, and very little make-up, if any. I don’t go to malls to be a fashion plate, like many women do. And it’s not that I’m runway model gorgeous or that I don’t have to work hard at looking presentable or anything like that. In fact, I’m 44 years old, in pretty good shape, but rather average-looking on any ordinary day.

But it never fails that inevitably some guy will come on to me in one way or another.

Today, a guy with three kids was walking towards the shoe store as I was coming out. He motioned towards his children and said to me, “My babies need a mama.” I looked at him, trying to hide my utter disgust at a man who would pimp his children that way. I politely responded, “It looks like they need a father too.” It took him a while to catch on to the insult, and when he finally did, he yelled back, “Yo, that was cold-blooded!”

I was actually upset with myself after that exchange. It was obvious that I took the situation way too personally. He didn’t know me and what he saw of me in that split second didn’t give him much to go on. But he took a chance because who knows? Maybe I could have been looking for a man with three kids to be a mother to. The more I thought about it, I was really upset that he had more chutzpah than I could ever imagine having. All I could think of is, “I would never do anything like that.” Maybe that’s what my problem has been all my life. I have always been known to take the safe routes, the roads most often traveled because they were the ones that were tried, tested, and found true. This guy not only took a different road, he didn’t stop to ask for directions and he didn’t care who was watching. Oh, to be so free.

As I drifted through the mall observing the people and trying to figure out what their lives must be like based on their appearances, I couldn’t stop thinking about the guy with the three kids. I was gazing at some photographs outside a photography studio when another gentleman walked up to me and said, “I went to sleep last night hoping God would reveal the woman of my dreams to me and He did. It was you.” I told him that he was probably lactose intolerant and it was really a nightmare and that he might want to be more specific with God the next time he talked to Him because I was already taken. I walked away shaking my head incredulously and threw up my hands as I came to a critical decision. I went back to my favorite shoe store and bought those black suede pumps and threw in some black boots for good measure. God knows, after the day I’d had, I deserved them.

In The Fray Contributor