A mom screamed at me because her kid didn’t win a balloon from our store’s giveaway. I calmly handed one to the kid. She snatched it from him, threw it at me, and shouted, ‘Let me speak to the manager now!’ What I didn’t expect was that her son came up to me and said, ‘I wish you were my mom.’
I stood there, stunned.
The bright red balloon had rolled across the floor, bumping into the candy display. My shift vest suddenly felt heavier. The boy looked up at me with these big, watery eyes.
He couldn’t have been more than seven or eight. I smiled, a bit awkwardly, unsure what to say. His mother was still yelling something about customer rights and how we were traumatizing her child.
“I’m sorry,” the little boy whispered. I bent down to his level. “It’s not your fault.
You did nothing wrong.”
He nodded but looked embarrassed, maybe even ashamed. That hit me harder than the balloon ever could. My manager, Alina, came rushing over with the tired, forced smile she wore on Saturdays.
She pulled me aside while the woman launched into her complaint like she was delivering a closing argument in court. I watched the boy sneak over to the balloon, pick it up, and tie it to his wrist while his mom wasn’t looking. Alina sighed.
“I know you didn’t do anything wrong, but go take your break. I’ll handle her.”
I took off my vest and headed toward the back, but before I disappeared, I heard the mom say, “This place is trash! And that girl—she tried to humiliate my son!”
I bit my tongue.
My breakroom smelled like over-microwaved fish again. I sat down, scrolling through my cracked phone screen, trying to shake it off. But all I could think about was that boy.
“I wish you were my mom.”
That wasn’t just a throwaway line. You could feel it. He meant it.
I clocked back in twenty minutes later, and the storm had passed. The woman was gone, and so was the boy. I went about the rest of my shift like usual—restocking shelves, helping elderly customers find things, answering the same questions for the hundredth time.
But I couldn’t forget his face. The next few days passed, and I went back to my routine. I worked at “PennyPal,” a discount store in a small town, not exactly glamorous.
I was saving up for community college, living with my aunt after my mom passed two years ago. She’d been a single mom, too. Did her best, worked long hours, and still made time to teach me how to braid hair and make soup from scratch.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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