I was about three months pregnant with my daughter when I had the opportunity to understand the difference between having a horrible thought and acting on that horrible thought. I had taken my 18 month old son for his routine checkup and had stopped on my way home to pick up a few must-haves from the grocery store.
I decided to shop at the Winn Dixie where my then-husband was “third man” (whatever the heck that was…something like the guy who gets to work the crappy hours when the manager and assistant manager are too smart to work.) So, it was about 9:30 AM and I entered the store. My hubby greeted me nicely as I came in, and I shot back with, “man, this store is so cold I can’t even put my hands on the grocery cart without them freezing!”
(OK, clearly, I was not in the best mood and he wisely “got busy” doing some important third man stuff.) I went through the store picking up the few items I needed, silently cursing the frigid shopping conditions. Must-haves in cart, I headed to check out. I was not feeling too great, so I decided I’d grab a Snickers bar and eat it on the way home.
As I stood in line behind an elderly woman and her granddaughter, I was struck by an overwhelming desire to kick the kid. Yes, you read right! The little girl was about nine years old and was incessantly pleading with her grandmother to buy her this little golden book, which, as the grandmother noted, was intended for a child much younger. The more the kid whined, the more I wanted to kick her. I was astonished at myself, but the desire was undeniable. And I was so HOT!!! How was it possible that mere minutes earlier I had been freezing and now I was about to have heat stroke?
Thankfully, they managed to get through checkout without my inflicting pain on either and, I am certain, were blissfully unaware of my evil thoughts. Finally, it was my turn at the register. The clerk quickly rang up my few items and I readied my checkbook for action. As she finished ringing me up, I looked up from my checkbook to see the total. That’s when I caught sight of that poor cashier’s face. She looked like a leopard! I was just about to say something when….
Well, I came to on the floor in front of the cash register. Passing out in the grocery store is bad enough. Passing out in you husband’s place of employment is worse yet, and passing out in the grocery store that is your husband place of employment when the district supervisor is making his visit is worst of all!
There I was, paramedics trying to rush me to the ambulance, me clutching my Snickers bar and declaring I was fine, they telling me that blood pressure 60/40 is, “not hardly, Fine!” Of course, I was right. I was fine, I had just had a rapid drop in blood sugar which resulted in a rapid drop in blood pressure, which resulted in my passing out. I suppose all of those crazy sensations, the freezing, the impatience, the sweltering heat and the strong desire to kick a little girl were part of the blood sugar dropping/blood pressure dropping/Judy dropping process! But I sure learned that even I can have some pretty downright irrational thoughts from time to time!
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