Have You Ever Thought You'd Been Accosted!

Mary Anne Oger from one of my favorite machine knitting blogs was accosted in a grocery or so she thought.  A strange person grabbed her to get her attention, because she liked her scarf.  The story reminded me of the time my mom and I were accosted in a fabric store.

Oh it's one of those funny stories that gets told every so often, but at the time we thought we were in mortal danger.

My crafting gene was in full swing by the time I was 14.  My mother and I were on one of our many trips to the fabric store to feed my sewing habit.  I made a lot of my own clothes.  My secret loop hole to the clothing budget.  My parents bought me all the fabric I wanted, because I was of course learning a valuable skill.  Anyhow we were at the sewing store.  Perusing the fabrics.  Chatting about my pattern and what color of fabric I was looking for.  Enjoying a shopping trip... enjoying some mother/daughter time when all of a sudden a creepy old man lunges at us.  His hands are held in front of him fingers curled in a menacing claw like manner.  He was yelling, "Raaaaarrrrrrrrrr!!!!"  My mother and I screamed bloody murder and grab each other in a tight hug.  I had my eyes closed convinced the man was going to strike us or something worse.

Suddenly, it was quiet.  I opened my eyes to see what was coming next and the man was standing in front of us with a smile on his face.  Now my mom and I are puzzled.  He asks, "Well?"  My mom and I look at one another and back at the man trying to understand what the heck was going on.  He asked me directly, "Well, do you still have the hiccups?"  We both suddenly relax and realize he was trying to scare the hiccups out of me.  Yes, he did scare the hiccups out of me and nearly a few other things.

My mom and I gave him a forced smile and went on our way.  We weren't nearly as thankful as I think he thought we should be.  Instead we walked around the corner away from his sight and grabbed our chests and breathed several great sighs of relief.  It was only then we could chuckle at the ridiculousness of the whole situation.  Poor guy thought he was doing a good deed and we just thought he was creepy.