Crossing over

I well remember the first time it happened. I was in line at the service counter at Toys 'R Us, desperately trying to find one more Furby so I would have enough to give one to all the kids in my class at Christmas. My anxiety was weighing heavy on me -- I couldn't give 9 kids a Furby and 1 kid something different! And I had been to every toy store in the area. I didn't notice that I was next in line.

Finally I realized the clerk was calling the next person. But he was calling "Ma'am," so obviously someone else must have been next. I went back to my worries. What if they weren't expecting to get anymore Furbys? And is the plural of Furby Furbies?

The clerk's voice, now significantly louder than it had been, penetrated my thoughts again. Why wasn't this "Ma'am" responding? I didn't have all day to wait. I looked around, annoyed.

But there wasn't anyone else there. Slowly, I realized . . . I was it. I was the Ma'am.

Surely there was some mistake. Ma'ams were moms, grandmas, elderly English schoolmarms who long ago should have retired! Not me! I was still young, still --

I looked at the clerk. They let 14-year-olds work in a store now? I thought. I was torn. I needed to know about the Furbys, needed desperately to go up to the counter and ask him, but to do so would be to take my place in that club, that club no woman enters willingly, the club whose members have laid down their youth. Forever.

But the need for one more talking, furry alien propelled me to the counter. Happily, they had some more stashed behind the counter, and I got one of the last ones.

Thankfully, there is only one "first time" for anything, and after that it got easier to respond to "Ma'am." But every now and then, just to show the youngsters who service our stores and restaurants that I haven't rolled over dead yet, I assume an innocent face and say sweetly, "Oh, ma'am, can you tell me . . . ."