Armed And Dangerous Means Your Arm

My mom is paralyzed from the waist down, so my dad and I take her out grocery shopping every now and then. She has a motorized wheelchair, but it’s too bulky to take with us to the store, so we bring her non-motorized (push) wheelchair with us.

Dad pushes her around while I pull stuff off the shelves she wants us to get and put them in our cart. Dad has a voice that he’s used in the past to scare people. Just ask old potential boyfriends of mine.

While we’re doing this, another customer begins yelling.

Customer: “Hey, miss?”

She then starts whistling and pointedly clearing her throat. I put the last item in the cart and turn to the customer.

Me: “Can I help you?”

She thrusts a list at me and demands:

Customer: “Get me the stuff on my list.”

I look nothing like the employees; they wear blue from head to toe, basically, and I am wearing a yellow sundress with daisies on it.

Me: “No, I’m helping my mother now. I think there’s an employee at the front desk who can help you.”

She doesn’t like this and reaches out to grab my arm.

Customer: “You will help me now or I will get you fired.”

I shove her away, shouting “NO!” Then, I feel blood running down my arm where her nails have broken the skin on my bicep. Dad looks over and kind of freaks when he sees the blood.

Dad: “Leave my daughter alone!”

My dad’s voice is loud enough to get an employee to rush over.

Employee: “Is there a problem?”

Dad: “This woman just assaulted my daughter. Do you have a first aid kit or something to help her out? I’m going to call the cops while you get this.”

Upon hearing the word “cops”, the lady just sunk to the floor crying and trying to say it was just a misunderstanding. When the cops arrived, I had been bandaged up. The manager had come up, and upon listening to my and my dad’s story, as well as the employee describing the aftermath, the cops went to the back with the manager to check the video. Meanwhile, the lady was crying, saying, “I’ll lose my kids.” — no “sorry” or anything like that. The cops arrested her for assault on a minor and took her away crying.

At the trial later, the two things I most remember are that she was on probation and did indeed lose custody of her kids (I think the father got them), and she tried to say, “It was an honest mistake; I thought she was an employee.” Whereupon the judge said, “Even if she was an employee, what gives you the right to grab someone like this?” while showing her the pictures that were taken of my bloody arm.

She broke into more tears as the judge read her sentence, including the loss of her children due to violating her probation, plus some community service, I think.

Much later, as part of her effort to get her children back, she had to write me a letter of apology, which is still in my parent’s attic in a box.