The First Difficult Lesson: Doing the Right Thing is Not Always Easy

It was love at first sight. We made a pit stop at Ramstein Thrift Shop on the way to the commissary, and Chase practically squealed when she saw this chair. She climbed on it, walked around it, tried to figure out how to sit on it, and couldn't stop playing with all the little toys on the table. I was pleasantly surprised that the asking price was only $4.00. Then I heard "oh, that's mine, but she can play with it," from a lady, who had been in the toy room before we got there. The more she laughed and had a great time showing passing strangers how to properly climb a chair, the heavier my heart got. Then the lady decided it was time to move on and took the chair. I was able to distract Chase with another piece of loud toy while she quietly slipped out of the room with minimum fussing from my sad little baby. I kept whispering into her ears "Momma will buy you whatever you want here," but I sensed that it was more for my heart than hers. Then when we were standing in line to pay, I saw it--THE CHAIR! It was set to the side along with piles of what I presumed to be stuff people decided against at the last second. I didn't see the same lady anywhere and practically threw myself down to cover that collection of brightly colored plastic pieces like it was a stack of solid gold bricks. Chase squealed loudly one more time and I literally thought I was going to die of happiness. We paid and I stupidly stopped to make a small talk with an expectant couple behind us about their upcoming deployment. And then she showed up--the same lady who had earlier claimed the chair! After a verbal exchange with a cashier, I gathered that she had asked the cashier if it was okay for her to leave her loot there while she went in to look for more stuff in other rooms. Naturally, the cashier was a high school student on the most boring summer job ever and could not care less about who wanted to toss what where and promptly sold me a piece of toy that was already spoken for. What to do? Technically, it was mine, or rather Chase's, since I had already paid for it. But it would have been wrong to run off with a toy for another baby. If I were that mother, who had apparently been looking for this particular chair everywhere, I probably would have fought hard for it as well. She handed me $4.00 while I tried to peel my twice-jilted baby off of the chair again. I hugged Chase extra tight, swallowed a hard lump in my throat, and ran for the car. Chase furiously waved to and yelled at the chair now left behind. It was clearly much harder on me because two minutes later she was beside herself excitedly pointing to rows of colorful cans in the commissary. One day, something like this won't be as easy to deal with, although I hope she will learn to follow her heart and do what is right even though it is not easy.