Can you believe this?

I had to take my kid to the Gap to get socks and a mom I know tagged along with her child. She said she needed athletic pants for her son and we could make it into a “shopping playdate!”

We were looking around the store and I came across shirts that I thought might be good for the kids this spring. I was looking for size 3T so was going through the pile to find it. That’s when the trouble started.

She scolded me for messing up the shirts. “Hey you know the people who work here are going to have to fold all of those again; it’s a real pain in the neck for them. I said I knew that because I had worked at the Gap back in high school. She said she worked at Benetton as a teenager and got really upset every time customers messed up the clothes. I told her that I planned on fixing them once I found the size I was looking for. “Yea, but can you fold them the way they need to be folded?

Not losing my folding skills from back in the 80’s I said I would demonstrate how good I still was. She watched as I folded a shirt perfectly.

We laughed about it, but then she started in again. She showed me how to find a size without opening up the folded shirt. Then she demonstrated how to lift the pile of shirts to get to the one I wanted without unfolding anything. I had had enough of this and wanted to go pay.

It was at that point that our kids started going nuts. They were pulling clothes off the shelves, throwing accessories and making a real scene. I felt terrible, but she lost it in the middle of the sale area and started having a meltdown. She asked a Gap employee for her cart & threw the unfolded clothes on it and started folding like a maniac. Our kids were laughing and I was horrified. I asked her if she was ok, the Gap employee said to stop, that it really wasn’t a problem, but she couldn’t stop herself, all the while mumbling that this wasn’t right. She wasn’t watching her kid, she was just folding and cleaning and I was chasing both kids around the store. She finally finished folding about 10 shirts and then I paid for the socks. It was exhausting.

As we were leaving she said she could use a coffee. I told her I had to head home. This was a disturbingly bad playdate. I can understand being upset that the kids were misbehaving and wanting to clean up after them, but she seemed to be having some sort of flashback.

Posted by BadPlaydate in Family, Fatherhood, Gossip, humor, Motherhood, parenting Tags: advice, bad playdate, bad playdates, family, fatherhood, Folding shirts, gossip, help with kids, humor, judgemental, kids, mom, Mom had meltdown, mommy stuff, motherhood, NYC, parenting, playdate, Playdate at a store, Retail, SAHM, single dad, single mom, stay at home parents, suburbs, The Gap, toddlers