The Trader Joes Incident

I love big-beaded necklaces. I own about a million and a half of them. But each one is different and goes with different outfits, so they are each important to me.

On this specific occasion, a Saturday morning, I chose to wear a brand new red/orange various-size beaded necklace. Killian and I made our first errand stop of the day at Trader Joes. He was sitting in the front of the shopping cart. I was pushing said shopping cart. After exploring every aisle and successfully picking up everything on my list, we ventured back to the produce section to pick up my current favorite food - seedless watermelon. As I was staring at the mound of delicious melons, picturing how juicy they were inside, Killian took ahold of my necklace. I wasn't alarmed by this; he was in a great mood and wasn't pulling hard. I knew he had no mal intentions. A split second later, I felt the string snap, and everything went into slow-motion. I watched what seemed like hundreds of beads fall to the hard cement floor. Each bead bounced in a diferent direction. Some went under the chip aisle shelving, some under the produce bins. Many headed for people's shopping carts. I had visions of people slipping on my beads and falling all over Trader Joes. While that image now makes me laugh, at the time it was very stressful. Everyone was looking at the source of the scattered beads: me. I turned red, as I so easily do, and frantically began grabbing every bead I could find. I also tried to warn all people entering "THE BEAD ZONE" in an attempt to keep my visions from coming to pass. A couple of lovely bystanders handed me small handfuls of beads that they had recovered. I shoved each one into my tiny change purse and scanned the floor for more. I forgot to mention that some of the beads were the exact shape, size and color as cherry tomatoes - so I ended up grabbing a few squishy fugitive tomatoes that had found a hideout under the produce bins.

All of this took place in less than 1 minute. When I realized that I had gotten ahold of all the beads that I possibly could, and knew I had to leave the rest for dead, I snapped my bulging coin purse closed, took a deep breath, and looked to Killian. I gave him a flustered smile hoping that he would "get" me. I also thought that he might be feeling kind of bad for having a) broken my adored necklace, and b) causing such a stir.

Instead, he looked at me and said, with a very sincere face, "That's too bad!" ("Bad" was pronounced "bayyadd".) I have NO idea where he picked up this phrase or how he knew when to use it, but it certainly took me by surprise! Not "oops" or "sorry". An almost sarcasticcally-toned and unapologetic way of avoiding any responsibility for the incident.