Hog.

This morning, as I walked, groggy eyed, out to the living room to take a quick peek at my easter basket before heading to church with my family, I was delighted to see two cute little buttons glimmering atop my basket of goodies. The pins, delievered to me courtesy of the Easter bunny, bore the image of my favorite animal- the hedgehog. I've loved hedgehogs since I was a little girl, so this throwback treat brought me great delight. I hastily fastened them to the front of my dress as we headed en masse out to door to church. As I swayed throught the stiflingly hot service, my mind, and gaze, began to wander, until my eyes rested on a shiny circle under the bench of the family sitting mext to me. Upon closer scrutiny, it became evident that it was one of my pins. It must have fallen off of my dress at some point in the Mass. As the service progressed, I became more and more nervous. The family above my pin had four small children, one of whom was destined to spy my pin and snatch it up for their own. I'm usually very generous to small children, happy to give them whatever little treasures I have on me, but I was not about to mess around with this pin. I started plotting ways to surreptitiously grab it- I didn't want to attract the attention of the family for fear that they would think I had taken something of their's, nor did I want to come off as a freak who interrupted Mass to hunt down a hedgehog pin. As the priest talked on and on and on, I began to lose focus on his voice, hearing only my own frantic mental prayer- Dear God, please don't let them take my pin.
What the heck is wrong with these kids? Don't they ever look down? Why haven't they noticed it? At least if they noticed it I'd have an opening, or at the very least my suffering would end! Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. As we got back from communion I leaned over to my mom- I couldn't take the pressure. I needed to tell someone about this dilemma. "Mom, I dropped the hedgehog pin. It's over there by those kids. I'm afraid they're going to steal it." Wordlessly, my mom, a seasoned pro at Baby-toy recon, glided over to the other family, plucked the pin from under the feet of the potential-thieves, and returned it to me. As the church burst out in song around us, my mom whispered to me out of the side of her mouth- "Amateur."
Embarrassing. I'm never having kids.