Stranger Danger
Stranger Danger
Ros Thomas
The Weekend West
Published: Saturday July 5, 2014
I hadn’t found myself a target of public aggression since pub crawl days. I certainly wasn’t expecting a verbal stoush in the childrenswear department of Target. A week later, I’m still feeling rattled. (Why do I take things to heart?)
It was mid-afternoon and the shop floor was quiet. I was rifling through the flannelette pyjamas, searching for pink or purple ones for my 4-year-old. (She’ll only wear a two-tone palette).
Somewhere nearby, a toddler was coughing uncontrollably – a raspy bark that set my teeth on edge. In between hacks, I could hear his attempts to suck in a lungful of air, only to choke on another volley of coughs.
The sound of that child’s spluttering wormed its way into my head until it was all I could hear. Around me, shoppers stopped talking. Two women in Boyswear craned their necks trying to get a fix on the sick youngster. I could spot neither child nor carer. I could only picture a distraught toddler in a pram, his anxious mum trying to soothe him.
I rounded a rack of cardigans in Girlswear 1-7yrs. A small man with a chirpy daughter in his arms was sifting through a pile of jumpers. He acknowledged me with a smile then mimed his bottom lip thrust forward. “Poor bubba” he said, and we both nodded.
“Where’s it coming from?” I asked.
“Over there somewhere,” and he motioned towards an aisle stacked with nappies and baby food.
As we turned to look, a woman in her 60’s with a stylish silver bob rounded the corner of the aisle. She was pushing an upmarket stroller containing the distressed toddler, a blonde poppet about two.
“Poor thing, is she okay?” I said to the grandmother.
“Oh, she’s fine!”
“Sounds like croup, doesn’t it? My son used to get it as a toddler – it was awful.”
“It’s actually none of your business what she’s got! For your information, it’s just a cold. She got it from day care, all right?”
Uncertain how to react, I offered her a weak smile. At that, she gave me both barrels: “You think you’re a bloody doctor do you? Do you?”
“Um, no. I just remember that barking sound they make when they get croup.”
“Well, who the hell do you think you are? Mind your own business!”
And with that parting shot, she marched away with the still-wheezing toddler. My heart was thumping. I turned around to see the friendly dad, rigid with surprise. He shrugged and said quietly: “She sounds pretty sick to me!”
I made a beeline for the checkout, still trembly from the altercation. I handed over a pair of pj’s and was reaching for my wallet when the grandmother with the toddler arrived at the checkout next to mine.
“I’m so sick of you paranoid mothers!” she snapped at me.
I froze in fright. Shoppers swivelled in our direction. She repeated: “There’s nothing wrong with her. Got it?”
Two rows of checkout operators and their customers were agog. I tried to shrink and pretend she wasn’t addressing me. I hurriedly tapped in my pin, stuffed the pyjamas into my bag and sped outside, keen to escape my bemused audience. I scrabbled for my phone and rang a girlfriend: “I’ve just been shop-raged! Some woman just had a real go at me! I’m still shaking!”
“Oooh that happened to me once!” she replied. “I burst into tears in the middle of the shop!”
My department store stoush has dogged my thoughts. Two nights ago, I dreamt about that grandmother, replaying her diatribe in my head. I woke up still bewildered about what I’d said that set her off. Had she misread my concern as impertinence? Had I sounded judgmental?
I thought back to the last time my 7-year-old had croup. His fever spiked at 39 degrees. It was terrifying: he was disoriented and stiff, his movements jerky. I raced him to emergency and we spent a night on the ward, spooned together on a gurney while he barked himself hoarse.
Perhaps, after that trip to hospital, I did overreact in Target. Obviously that nanna resented my solicitude about her two-year-old charge. Or maybe she snapped because a stranger expressing concern made her feel negligent. Perhaps she really believed her granddaughter just had a cold.
I’m not good at dealing with hostility – a tongue-lashing like that and I fall apart. But I’m usually adept at reading strangers. I can normally pick the ones who’re open and chatty. I’ll pass over those whose body language says ‘do not disturb.’ I enjoy making small talk, but there’s a delicate balance between being friendly and appearing pushy. On this occasion, I may have poked a lioness with a stick.