I Scream, You Scream. We all Scream.

Tomorrow is the last day of school. Which means. The required and dreaded (but only because I agonize over it) teacher's gifts. I want the teachers to know I appreciate all the hardwork they put in. Jill's teacher was easy. The homeroom mom organized a class gift, and she is receiving a substantial gift certificate to her favorite restaurant. Emmi's teachers? That's another story. First, there are, like, ten of them. Seriously. Two teachers, three therapists, an Audiologist, and four bus drivers. Second, that are all wildly different. Third, I only have about five dollars to spend on each teacher. How on Earth do you say "Thanks for working one-on-one with my special needs child who is quite the terror, extremely naughty, and probably drives you crazy," with five dollars? Impossible.

For Christmas, I found a review of cookie cutters that were all missing pieces like someone had taken a bite out of them. Funny. I ordered sets for all of the teachers. That went over well. For weeks, I have been trying to come up with a summer-type theme. I asked a few teacher friends for ideas. We came up with a few things. All of them too expensive. Or inappropriate And then. Last night it came to me. Ice cream scoops with a gift card to a local ice cream shop attached to them. Perfect!

Jill's awards ceremony was this morning. I figured I could run to the dollar store and grab some ice cream scoops and be done with the whole thing by 10:30 this morning. Wrong. Dollar store number one. No ice cream scoops. By the third dollar store, two Targets, and Hobby Lobby, I was beginning to think I should abandon the idea. Or I already had. But I had nothing else. I needed to do something by tomorrow. Party City was my last shot. I though perhaps people throwing parties might need to scoop ice cream.

Up and down the isles I went. And finally. There they were. Two full boxes. And they were cute. Score! I grabbed one to check the price. Please, please let it be cheap. I couldn't afford expensive ones. Not just to use to attach to gift cards. I flipped the tag over....

"Uh ma'am. I need to stock that shelf. You need to move." The sales girl smacked her gum as she talked. Stereotypical.

"I am looking here. I'll be done in a minute." I didn't budge. She got pissed.

"I need to stock that shelf. You can take your ice cream scoop down there to look at it."

Oh hell no. No little sixteen-year-old was going to talk to me like that. And? Seriously. I AM THE CUSTOMER. What the fuck?

I grabbed Emmi, and marched to the front of the store to find the manager. I explained what had happened. How the idiot girl had asked me to move, to stop shopping so she could stock the shelf. Then I held up the ice cream scoop. "See this. I needed TEN of them. I have been to FIVE stores to find ice cream scoops. And I need TEN. You have ten. But I won't buy them from you now, because your employee was so rude."

Or because they were $13.99 a piece which I saw long before the girl asked me to move, as I was about to put it back on the shelf.