True incident from our adventures in baby furniture shopping this weekend:

Dan and I went to a large discount department store with a fairly decent baby supplies section this weekend as part of our ongoing quest to find a crib, changing table/dresser and rocking chair for the nursery. Since it's about a million degrees here in Albuquerque right now, the process of driving around, parking, going into stores and then getting back in the hot car that never cools off in between destinations has been kind of exhausting for me. (I know, I know, I am whining. But seriously, I am going to strive never to be seven months pregnant in the month of July again.)

At the end of one of our shopping trips, in the aforementioned department store, Dan and I were pausing to discuss the merits of a particular rocking chair we were considering buying. Since I had already sat in the chair, I was getting Dan to test it out, because a piece of furniture that is comfortable for me is not always going to be comfortable for Dan, who is six feet, six inches tall. But I still wanted to sit down, because my feet were killing me, so I found a seat on a toddler bed that was right next to the rocking chair and sat down on the edge of that.

I should pause at this point in the story to explain that we had been in this store for nearly an hour, and in the course of shopping there, I had asked the sales staff for that department a few questions about things like color selections, toddler bed features, and the kind of trivia that fills your brain when you've been looking at baby furniture for two days straight. The sales staff in question were two older ladies who were not terribly helpful or enthusiastic about answering those questions. I suppose you get what you pay for, and we were in a discount kind of store, but it was still not impressive customer service.

But now we're at the end of our trip, and we're basically sitting there talking about whether or not we're going to purchase something before we leave or think about it for a couple of days and come back. Right at that moment, one of the sales ladies, who has previously not acknowledged our presence unless absolutely required to do so, rounds the corner and sees me sitting on the toddler bed. She stops, looks at me with extreme distaste and says "Ma'am, there's a 50-pound weight limit for those toddler beds."

I blinked at her a couple of times while it sunk in that this woman was, in fact, suggesting to me that I might be large enough to break a piece of furniture that is supposedly designed for toddlers, who are not exactly known for being gentle with their belongings. Then I got up, apologizing. In hindsight, I wish I hadn't apologized, because she was really being very rude, but at that point I was flustered and wanted to get out of the store. But before I could do that, this woman proceeded, with great ceremony, to get down on her hands and knees and examine the undercarriage of the toddler bed, clearly implying that she was checking to see if I had damaged it in some way.

Boy, that made me want to whip out my credit card and spend some money! Needless to say, we left.

So here's a tip, baby product retail people of the world: If your target buying demographic is pregnant women, you might want to work on being really nice to pregnant women, or at least not actively implying that they are so fat as to be about to detstroy your floor models. Because now that you mention it, I am pretty big these days, and I could crush you like a bug. Don't tempt me. Better the toddler bed than you, lady.

Maybe tomorrow I will go back and have Dan wheel me around in one of their strollers.