Letter to Store Manager

Dear REI Store Manager:

Please accept my non-apologetic explanation of the scene that occurred in the Children's Bike Section of your Brentwood store earlier today. You see, we had only gone into your store to look for Mama a water bottle -- not to ride pink tricycles with streamers. But your Store Arranger Person probably didn't think about how it would affect my life (and the lives of your customers and employees) if pink tricycles with streamers were placed in the front of the store rather than in farthest back corner, like they are at Target. I like Target -- now those Store Arranger People really have their heads on straight.

So when it came time to leave the Children's Bike Section and go to the Mama's Water Bottle section, my son and I had a little bit of a showdown. And really, I feel that I handled it well: I allowed him to ride the bikes for several minutes, gave him fair warning, and was in the process of lifting him off the pink bestreamered three-wheely when it happened. A sharp pain shot through my upper arm. Tears came into my eyes. When I looked down, I noticed that there were teeth marks right in the same spot where I felt the shooting pain.

Accordingly, in an attempt to provide consistent discipline for my child, I put him in time out underneath a green sea kayak poised vertically on a beam just across from the personal flotation devices and right next to the Children's Bike Section where the previously-mentioned oral assault occurred. It was then that he started screaming hysterically and it was then that four employees and six customers all stopped, looked directly at me -- tears streaming down my cheeks -- and GLARED.

Now, why exactly do you think they were glaring at ME? Because I discipline my child? Because my child dislikes time-outs? Because I should really be in control of his teeth at all times?

You see, I take issue with this. I take issue because it's hard enough to raise a child without having pink tricycles with streamers standing in the way. It's hard enough not to bite your child back when he sinks his teeth into your soft, delicate flesh (which, by the way, likely would've made him scream even LOUDER). It's hard enough to implement consistent and widely-accepted disciplinary tactics in an attempt to help a child differentiate good and bad decisions. But it's just downright ENRAGING when, despite all of your good intentions, despite your throbbing, tooth-pocked arm, despite your restraint, you are faced with the glares of perfect strangers shopping for rock climbing gear or people attempting to sell freeze-dried scrambled eggs in a bag ("just add hot water and shake!"), who obviously don't have kids and couldn't recognize good mothering if it bit them on the arm. Yes, I do take issue on matters such as that.

I certainly will not apologize for even one second of it though I do feel for your poor, tortured customers and employees who may never be the same ... much like my mangled upper arm.

Thank you for your time in reading this heartfelt letter. Perhaps you should forward this on to your Store Arranger Person in the hopes that providing a better store layout might enhance the shopping experiences of your customers and the working atmosphere for your employees. And think again if you're labelling me "Once Bitten, Twice Shy."

I'll be back.

Sincerely,
Supermom

p.s. In case you want his picture for a "Most Wanted" poster, here it is: