Yesterday, I was feeling kind of frustrated and unhappy because people were being cranky at me for voicing my opinion on Twitter about soda being unhealthy. I know. Why the hell are people cranky at me about something that everyone knows has zero health benefits? And why was that bothering me? Whatever. All I knew was I needed to get offline and go do something positive to cancel out the negative. I wanted to go out and do something kind for a stranger.

A friend of mine suggested going to Target and paying off toys that people had put on layaway for Christmas. This sounded like the perfect idea so I threw on my shoes and went straight to a Target. After speaking with the manager and their HR person about my plan, they said they don’t offer layaway to their customers, but suggested a few stores nearby that might. I decided on Toys R Us since my plan was to find someone who was trying to buy toys for their kids anyway.

When I spoke to the manager at this particular Toys R Us about what I wanted to do, she kept looking at me like she couldn’t understand what I was asking. Apparently, no one has ever asked to do this for someone else with merchandise on layaway in their store before.  I guess that makes sense. It’s not like a gift registry where people come in and buy things you requested. It’s things you’ve chosen for your child but can’t afford to pay for all at once, so you put it on a payment plan for yourself. She told me the deadline for the people with items on layaway to pay it off and pick them up was December 15th. We scrolled the computer together so I could choose some families to help.

These people have no idea who I am and I don’t know them either. There were hundreds of names staring back at me from the screen. I had no idea how to choose, so I based my decision on layaways that were set up in the middle of October, when Christmas layaway accounts could be started, because these people obviously needed as much time as possible to pay them off. I chose an equal number of men with accounts as women, and from there, by the items listed. Almost all of them were toys for very small children, one had a bike on the list, all of them had an obvious theme of what the child loved (Incredible Hulk, Barbie, Lego). Clearly, these families had chosen these gifts for their little ones so they could wake up on Christmas morning and have a holiday to remember, as well as hours of joy and entertainment long after the day was over.

Another store manager came to help out because it was a pretty lengthy process. He looked up at me and said ” You know, every shift I work I donate $5 to Toys for Tots which felt like I was doing something to help, but what you’re doing is really awesome.” That was sweet, but that’s not how I felt at all.  I have always felt that if we do what we can to help, no matter big or small, it makes an enormous difference. I told him about raising $15,000 in 5 days for the Pasadena Humane Society after our dog, Ferris had died. A HUGE portion of those donations came in just by me suggesting people skip their Starbucks for one day because that $5 can make a difference in helping others. Thousands of dollars were raised, $5 at a time because people just wanted to do their part to help. I encouraged the manager to keep doing what he’s doing, because he IS making a difference. He smiled and agreed.

The manager had employees go pull all of the items on the lists I had chosen so he could store all of the merchandise in his office. That way the families could pick them up directly from him, where he could explain why they didn’t have a balance due, and could just take their items home.

The staff was so sweet and helpful and were so awesome about helping me secretly do something kind for a stranger, even if it was outside the norm of store policies. They were just as much a part of doing something kind for these families as I was. I realized after I left that I never actually told the staff my name, which was perfect. My plan to do this anonymously followed through to the end.

I mentioned on Twitter that I did this because I knew there were others out there who would be inspired to find a way to help others. There are so many people in need of everything from food, shelter and clothing to just wanting to give their child a Christmas. I know I can’t help everyone, but after reading this, I hope it inspires others to do something, anything, just to be kind to a stranger.

Even though I was a young parent, I knew I wanted to be someone my children felt comfortable talking to. As much as every parent dreads the day their kid asks where babies come from or why boys have different parts than girls, I was determined to keep my discomfort face hidden when these questions came up, and just answer as informative as possible. Of course, a 5 year old doesn’t need ALL the details as say, a 13 year old could handle. But I knew I could add the filter when necessary and elaborate more as needed.

Wil and I moved in together when the kids were 7 and 5. The boys loved taking turns going someplace with just one of us, while the other stayed home. One afternoon, shortly after moving in together, I was heading to the grocery store to get some things for dinner when Ryan asked to go with me. He was very chatty on the drive there, and decided to touch just about everything he came across in the store.

Ryan and I cut down an aisle to get to the juice section in the back of the store. He was dragging his hands across the merchandise so I said “Ryan, please don’t do that. You’re going to knock things off the shelf.” He looked up at the shelves, then back to me, pointing to the items next to him and said “What are these things for?”

That was when I realized we had cut through the “feminine hygiene” aisle of the store. I tried to keep my discomfort face hidden. I knew this day would come eventually, but I really didn’t want to have this conversation with him in the middle of a grocery store where people could hear as they walked past. I calmly said “They’re called tampons and I’ll explain what they’re for when we get home. Now please stop touching everything.”

Thinking I was embarrassed by these tampons and being put in the position of not wanting to explain them in the store, Ryan proceeded to skip through the grocery store singing “tampons tampons tampons tampons” over and over. I decided to let him sing his little song so he would realize I am not embarrassed by them, but after the 4th person passed by giving me a weird look, I leaned over to Ryan and said “You know, you may not know what tampons are but the people around you do, so you may not want to sing your little song until you know exactly what they’re for.” The look of horror set in on his face, and he immediately stopped.

We went home and I went out to start the barbecue, while Ryan and Nolan played with Legos in their room. I was kind of hoping he’d forgotten about his earlier question and I wouldn’t have to have this conversation for at least a few more years. Ten minutes later, he joined me in the backyard. “So…are you going to tell me what tampons are for?” I felt the simplest way to explain it was to do a basic drawing of the female organs to show what it is, how it functions, and why a tampon is needed. He stood there in silence as I explained it, then looked up at me and yelled “GROSS!” and took off. I guess that answered his question. He never asked about them again.

About six months later, while at the grocery store with both kids, Nolan pointed to the tampon display and said “What are those?” Before I could say anything, Ryan cut in and said “Nolan, you do NOT want to know.” Nolan seemed to be satisfied with that answer, and it didn’t come up again until about a year later. I was in a pharmacy picking up a prescription with Nolan when he noticed a tampon display* and said “Ryan told me what those are. I don’t know what the big deal is but BOY was he freaked out by it.”

Over the years, my kids grew to be completely unphased by things I said to them. Either that, or they learned how to hide their discomfort face as well as I did because seriously, who wouldn’t be MORTIFIED that their 7 year old son was singing a tampon song while skipping through the grocery store?

*I swear I don’t live in the tampon aisle.

Last week, after much back and forth in my brain, I decided it was time. I walked into Wil’s office and said “I can’t believe I’m about to say this but…I think…I want my own blog.”

I know. It’s like I’ve been possessed by some sort of technology demon whose evil, whispering chant keeps getting louder and louder. It started with Facebook (Which isn’t a public account, just a private one for family and some close friends where I share way too much about myself. Come to think of it, I already do that on Twitter so I’m not really sure what the big deal is. Also, why am I having this entire conversation with myself in parentheses when you can all see it anyway? I’ll have to get back to you on that.)

As I was saying before I interrupted myself, I started with Facebook and then branched out to setting up my own Twitter account two years ago. Honestly, I did that because I started to feel bad for my family and friends who had to put up with my daily postings on Facebook of jokes or puns that I made up, or my over sharing of humiliating, yet funny stories about something I once did. I needed a bigger outlet. My friend refers to me as “no mystery” which I think is fairly accurate. I also set up that Google+ thingamajig but that thing seriously frightens and confuses me.

My husband, who is my resident nerd, set this up for me because let’s be honest, I have NO IDEA how this stuff works. Right now it looks pretty basic, but I will figure it out over time and make it my own. He just got it set up for me so I had a place to get started. Well, set it up and then made the first post with a magnificent derpy face picture. There were lots of server crashing issues last night and comments weren’t working but I think it’s all better now.

You may be asking yourself, “Who is Anne Wheaton and why does she have a blog?” So I’ll tell you a little bit about myself now. I’m a 44 year old wife, mother of two grown boys, retired hairdresser, rescue animal advocate (we have 5 of our own), a googly eye placing ninja, and a sucker for a good pun. I have my own favorites in the board game department, I don’t enjoy video games that aren’t 8-bit technology, I’m not a Star Trek or Doctor Who fan but I do have my share of nerd shows that I love, and I’m pretty sure I was a circus performer in a previous life.

I wanted a blog because sometimes Momma’s got too much shit to say and 140 characters just isn’t going to cut it. I am not a professional writer so if I make mistakes, I’m really okay with it. I’m doing this for my own amusement and an attempt at doing something outside my comfort zone because life is too short to not try new things.

While I was out today taking care of important things, my husband set up my blog for me. As soon as I get home, I’ll start making actual posts, but until then … have you seen my awesome husband?

Check him out:

Back off, everyone. He’s all mine. Also, he totally didn’t write this post. Honest. He swears.