Mean Mr. Mustard

This is an open letter to Bena Patel and his wife, owners of Bena's Hallmark in Tucker, Georgia:

Get over yourselves and treat your customers with respect.

Seriously.

You have pissed me off for the last time and maybe it makes me a horrible person, but I will do everything in my power to convince folks not to shop in your store because you and your wife are so very rude.

The first time you pulled your shit, I swore I'd never sit foot in your store again. Sadly, your store is really the only convenient gift shop and card shop in the town if I don't want to go out of my way or go to a store like Target.

When my son was two, we came into your store just before Christmas, hoping to find a cute Christmas ornament to mark the first Christmas when he knew what was going on. He got so excited at seeing all the ornaments and chose one...a $15 firetruck with Santa on top. He was delighted and so was I.

Until you came over and yelled at a two-year old little boy and told him not to touch anything. Not to touch any of the non-breakable ornaments.

Jackass!

I left, embarrassed and in tears with my child in tears, because you yelled at us in front of a store full of other shoppers. When my child was doing nothing that could have damaged your inventory in any way.

So...I held onto my anger for a while, but when necessity dictated that I needed to return to your store a year or two later hoping to find some charming little something for my mother-in-law, I decided to forgive you. You were having a bad day. Maybe some less attentive mom had just let her child run hogwild in the store and you got a bad impression of all parents and children.

My next visit went smoothly, although I honestly don't remember if I had my son with me or not.

Yesterday, my son, excited about his new Crocs wanted to get those little trinkets that go on them. Yours being the only store in our neighborhood that sells Crocs, I saw no other option for finding them, and since you're right next door to the grocery I needed to visit, I thought we'd just pop in and pick up what we needed and it would be a fun and pleasant excursion.

Nope. Sorry. Your wife ruined it.

She locked in on us the moment we strolled through the front door and locked in on us like we were common criminals dressed in jailbird stripes, ready to pilfer and plunder the entire fucking store.

She followed us up and down every aisle, never asking us if we needed help, but telling me instead not to let my 15-month old little boy to touch the fucking Webkins.

Are you fucking kidding me?

Don't let a child touch the fucking toys you have in there to sell to children? Did you ever stop to fucking think that I might buy one? In fact, as soon as I saw that you had Webkins, I thought I would buy one, but you eliminated that chance with your stingy, grubbing, overzealous desire to make sure a child doesn't break anything in your store.

I cannot believe your store is still open!

If I hadn't been excited for my son who so wanted to buy those stupid pins for his shoes, I would have been out of there.

I guarantee you this, I will never set foot in your store again and I will let everyone I know not to go in there either.

Jerks!

Sincerely,

Me