oh my lord, this did NOT happen to me!!

As a pinky-peach mom to beautiful brown children, I have become accustomed to intrusive, nosy, none-ya-bidness questions from all kinds of people. I am not a newbie at this. We have been a transracial family for 8 years now with J, and we became even more multicultural with the addition of S and E last November. Sometimes I handle the personal inquiries well and sometimes not so much. However, today I had an encounter that goes above and beyond anything I have EVER experienced. And not only did this all come from ONE person, but that person was a complete and total stranger!

So here's the deal. I take S and E to the library and then head over to my least favorite big box store to pick up a couple of things -- S is completely out of leave-in conditioner (eek!) and I needed some more hair goo myself. Normally, I head down the road to a different big box store that I find more preferable, but they didn't have my goo the other night, so I had to go to the icky store.

I am in the hair care aisle with S and E sitting in the cart. A woman rounds the corner, looks at the kids and has a very curious look on her face. It was kind of like she had tasted something bad but she couldn't quite decide what it was that she had tasted or why it tasted bad. I just stared at her. Her expression softened and she smiled at the kids and struck up a conversation with me. Oh, keep in mind that this is an African American woman. Here is what she threw at me:

Are these your kids?
Oh, I could tell you didn't give birth to them, but I wasn't sure if they were yours.
Why did you go there and not get kids here? There are so many here that need help.
She's so pretty! When she gets a little older you can give her a perm. (This is said as she is TOUCHING my daughter's hair. Explains that giving her a perm will make it look like hers -- straight.)
Why didn't you have any of your own? Did you have trouble getting pregnant?
So why didn't you adopt from here?
Are you Christian?
Are they brother and sister?
Where are their parents?
Why didn't you adopt from here?

I managed to turn it around on her after she mentioned having one son and 2 grandchildren and got the conversation away from my kids and our situation. She talked about how hard it is to raise kids these days -- and it doesn't matter if you are black or white. She has white friends! (I thought, omg! They use that too!) And then she blurts out, "I wish I had adopted him because then I could give him away!"

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Talk about shock and awe! Why didn't we send this woman to Iraq? I was dumbfounded. I did manage to say, "That's a personal question," and "Have YOU adopted domestically?" (Yes, she was really hung up on that one.) She seemed to think that because she was a nurse that this was a good enough reason to interrogate me in front of the shampoo and hair gel. Wow.

This woman -- again, a complete stranger -- fired every nosy question and assumption at me that they tell you about in the transracial adoption education they make you complete. I think she assaulted me with more in one shot than I have experienced in the last 8 years. AND SHE DID IT IN FRONT OF THE KIDS!!!!!!

I will tell you that I didn't do nearly as well as I should have. In fact, I feel like I totally blew it. I have always tried to prepare myself for those occasional invasions of privacy, but never in my wildest dreams did I expect to meet Nurse Nosy while shopping for my hair goo. Oh. My. Dear. God.

So, for those of you who have been home a short time or perhaps are still waiting for your beautiful children, learn from my amazing experience. Yeah, ready yourself for those occasional rude, personal questions, but don't forget that ALL of it may happen in one shot with one complete stranger, and it will figuratively and totally knock you on your ass.

Wow.