The Vintage Sunflower

On my way home from running errands the other day, I decided to run into this new, little store on the side of the road called "The Vintage Sunflower." It's one of those antique kinda places. I pass by that place every time I go to town, and this time it was open. I'm not much into antiques, but there are certain vintage things that I find appealing.

As I was looking around in shock at how expensive those used items were priced, two middle-aged ladies walked into the one-room building. I didn't pay much attention to them at first. But then I heard one of the ladies start to make a little commotion...

"There's a bug in my pants," she says with urgency in her voice as she started to shake her left leg trying to see if this so called "bug" would fall out. "Oh! I've got a BUG in my pants and it won't come out!!! Oh my gosh!!" She starts getting a little bit more anxious and is still looking like a kid who just peed in their pants with one of her legs jetting out as she shook her pant leg.

I immediately went back to a childhood memory when I was in second grade. While sitting in my classroom, a Caterpillar crawled up my jeans and bit me! I think I went to the school nurse crying and then went home. Must have been some kinda Caterpillar!

"I don't want to stare at her, " I thought. "Poor woman. I bet she's so embarrassed. I'd hate to be her right now with three ladies just standing there staring at her while she cuts a rug right here in the middle of this one-room store."

There was no way this woman was calming down. She got even more heated with every passing second. By this point, she was doing a serious jig, shaking her leg like she was starting a new trend in dance. It started to crawl up her pant leg. She was FREAKING OUT. "Oh my goodness, "I thought, "I don't know what I'd do if I were her." And that's when I realized that we had to quit staring and start helping this poor soul any way we could.

"Just squish it in your pants!!!" I told her with urgency in my voice now. My eyes were becoming ping pong balls as we waited to see what was going to happen. It was like I was holding my breath. "I am! That's what I'm doing! I think I got it!" The lady who owned the store finally walked away from her register and said in her southern voice, "Just go'on back there and take ya pants off and get that thang out. Go on!"

The lady couldn't even walk because that THING kept inching it's way up. I'm thinking, "Just squish the mosquito and be done with it." See, in moments like these, nervous laughter kicks in. When it's someone else...it always has to be someone else, and I don't know what to do to solve the situation that is apparently embarrassing, I start to giggle. I just can't help myself. I was scared to death for her, but at the same time, a smile started to pull from both corners of my mouth, so I raised my hand and covered my smile as I giggled. This was very entertaining, as much as I hated to see it happening. I truly felt so sorry for her. Nervous laughter does not reflect a lack of empathy on my part.  In fact, sometimes my empathy consumes me, and I have to reign in my emotions.

As she started to head back behind the curtain to take off her britches and get that thang out of there, it FELL OUT of her pant leg. Instantly, my mouth flew WIDE OPEN, and we all four screamed at the top of our LUNGS, like little girls. Ahhhh!!!! We were indeed all out SCREAMING. The woman jumped out of the way, with the look of horror all over her face,...and screaming.

I couldn't believe my eyes.

What I had thought to be a mosquito or ladybug was in fact the biggest grasshopper I'd ever seen in my whole life. It was HUGE. It was like the size of a lizard. I DIED. We were still screaming and carrying on, because we'd NEVER seen anything like that before, much less in one's pant leg, crawling up it. No wonder she couldn't ignore that beast on steriods, crawling up her pants.

Then, I started to laugh. 
SO HARD.
I was laughing, bent over kinda laughing.
Shoulders bouncing, pinching my nose, red face, wheezing, the whole nine yards
How hilarious was that?!!!! I could not catch my breath. 

 Things started to calm down a bit, except for my giggling. As I pretended to browse the shop, I kept laughing and chuckling under my breath as I replayed the whole scene in my mind.  Just when I thought I could regain my compsure, I'd see her shaking a leg, and then I'd see the monster hopper fall out of her pant leg. I was back to square one.

that kind of laughter = so much delight, so much stress-relief

I decided that it was time to go since Hugh was waiting on me and was in Daddy-Day-Care that afternoon. On the way to the car, I started up AGAIN, cracking up and laughing by myself, all the way home. When I told Hugh days later, I could hardly get through the story because I was laughing so hard!

What topped it all was when I walked out the store that day, I heard the lady say, "Eww! I feel all of it's guts all inside my pant leg!" I might be the one to blame for that, but at least it's out of her pants!