how to frighten customers and terrify children.

Cosmically speaking, after a year or so of dramatically lethargic unemployment, generally good health, miraculous financial stability, and, really, not un-decent weather, I suppose I'm due for a little upheaval.

It's ramping up again. Three kids in the water in a week of rowing should have been an omen. The return of my acid stomach and Marc's recent health-adventures might have had something cynical to say about all of this placidity. Ten straight days of rain and wool in June were yelling together: "Duck!"

I was calmly rearranging ice cream in the freezer yesterday afternoon, humming along to You Can't Always Get What You Want on the radio, considering whether to have an egg-salad sandwich when the store emptied out following Lunch, when I was jolted alert by a scream from behind me. It was not a ohmygodhowhaveyoubeen scream, either. This was a full blown, mommywhat'swrongwithyou scream. I turned around, and the woman sitting at the counter with her five-year-old daughter, the little girl who just graduated from Kindergarten and then let out an ear-piercing end-of-innocence scream, this woman, she appeared to be having a seizure.

And I was, reluctantly, in charge.

Suddenly I was transformed into feigning-confidence superwaitress. I was delegating calling 911 to the cook. I was sending a customer next-door for her brother, the EMT. I was grabbing the horrified child as her mother involuntarily stiffened against her.

After five long minutes, the police arrived, and my brush with confidence and competence came to an end.

And later, in this small town of a couple hundred, I became the town-appointed gossip, as seemingly each and every resident felt compelled to stop by or call to see what all the fuss was about. By fuss, I mean three ambulances and two police cruisers, and when the emergency vehicles outside outnumber the booths inside, you know you've got big trouble in a little town.

I set a new low for tips earned yesterday, last night I stepped in a puddle while wearing my new shoes, and I'm considering donning a helmet for today's shift.