Back in March, I knew that, at some point if we ever started getting what qualified as most-of-a-night's sleep, we'd be baptizing Babykins. I ordered his baptism outfit via jcpenney.com on April 19. It was supposed to be available within a week.

I've been the mom of a baby boy before, and I know that they grow when it's least expected. Lex shot from a 9-month to an 18-month size within days. Babykins currently wears 6-month clothing. It's April. No biggie. I ordered the romper big.

I got my notification of shipment on May 8, and it arrived a few days later. Problem was, by May 1st, his six month clothes no longer fit. Neither did the 12-month clothes. Anything less than twenty-four months made him look like an overstuffed sausage. So the size 18-months christening outfit needs to go back and has stood in front of my closet door, in its box, unopened, for the past six weeks.

It's just as well, really. I felt MGP (maternal guilt pangs) for having considered a store-boughten outfit. See, when Lex was six-months old, we were fortunate enough to go to Maui as a family. Before we left I looked up a Hawaiian fabric store on the Internet, but it sold only at its physical location. We drove there one morning at the beginning of a road adventure and I chose two yards of beautiful white-on-white printed cotton. When we got home, I bought a pattern and notions and got to work.

This is probably as good a time as any to address the query wafting through your head: "But Motormouth, I didn't know you sew." Truth is, I don't. Not really. Back in the late '90s, the nineteen-nineties that is, Stacia's mom taught me the basics and I did up a few little dresses and a full-length blue satin skirt. I got OK at it, but then didn't sew for years. So I can follow the directions pretty well but I'm no Lagerfeld.

Our local fabric store is going out of business so I got a cute print for Babykins' gown at 35% off. Then I went to the local Jo-Ann Store and bought a cute, EASY, no-frills pattern and some notions to match. Brought it all home, got the fabric washed on Monday and sat down that very evening to read the instructions.

"I figure that if I do a little each night, it'll be fine," I told Monstro. "The fabric is clean, tonight I'll read the instructions, tomorrow night I'll cut out the pattern and press everything, and that will leave Thursday, Friday, and Saturday to sew it. A little bit at a time."

I pulled out the directions with a flourish. "Oh, these are the Spanish ones." Yo no hablo. I moved on, pulling out the other packet of folded newsprint. "These are in English." But even before I unfolded it, I knew something was wrong. The line drawings didn't match the drawings on the front of the pattern's envelope. Come to notice, the pattern numbers don't match, either.

"+++dammit," I said, which is something that I NEVER say unless truly skeeved (my lexicon choice for "po'd beyond belief"). Monstro jerked his head around. "The instructions don't match the pattern," I told him. "These instructions are not for these outfits."

Bearing in mind that I am indefatigable, I decided to return to the Jo-Ann Store to pick up the matching instructions before gathering Lex from Tuesday preschool. No biggie. Plenty of time. I left the house at 3:20, got to the store around 3:40, had to have Lex in-hand by 4:15 but the store is near his school, which is why I'd planned it this way.

A nice lady coming out held the doors for me, which never seems to happen when I have the double stroller, but whatever. Welcome to Massachusetts.

There was a girl helping a party of three at the cutting table, so I walked over to where a woman was shelving buttons. I told her what I was up to. She said fine.

"I just didn't want you to think I was committing foul play," I explained, then went to the pattern file.

If you've never been to a fabric store, you need to know something: Fabric stores have filing cabinets that make law offices jealous. University admissions departments weep at the vastness of fabric-store file storage. They're also impeccably organized, with large tabs that proclaim each pattern's number, and a duckling line of patterns dutifully filed behind each such tab. Which, ultimately, makes it not at all difficult to ascertain at a moment's first glance that the pattern you want has sold out.

This moment's first glance set a pebble of despair into my stomach, but I shored up my indefatigability and went back to speak with Penny.

"Excuse me, but the pattern isn't there. What's next?"

Penny put down her buttons and came with me to the pattern area. She checked the patterns in front and in back of my desired number, and checked the pattern of the instructions I had to see if someone had put it back wrong after evaluating the two. Then we looked through the books and couldn't find anything else, at least, nothing that would look good in cotton print that I could also sew up in three days.

"I guess I'll just have to get my money back," I said.

"Yes, go up front and tell them... No, actually," she pulled her walkie-talkie from where it was clipped on her polo-shirt lapel, "I'll tell them."

It's a long walk from one end of this store to the other and yet, when I got to the cash register, there was nobody there. I didn't have my phone to tell me the time, and had left my wallet and everything saving my keys and the pattern in the car.

Clare (not her real name but she looked like a Clare so let's go with that) scanned the pattern, made it beep, and then clicked something to get to the next screen.

"Name?" Clare asked me.

I told her.

"Address?" she asked.

"Um, no, I don't think so," I said.

"I need your address."

"Why do you need my address?"

She clicked her tongue. "It's for, fraud purposes."

"Well, I'm not going to give you my address. Can you just skip it?"

She turned her head to talk into her walkie like a bird getting ready for sleep. "Can you come up here? I can't get the address info for a return-without-receipt."

Penny made the long walk to the front of the store and stood in the spot usually reserved for grocery baggers.

"I am not going to give out my address," I said.

"It's just for fraud purposes," Penny told me, as one tells a toddler not to do a headstand on the sofa.

"Well, we need to skip it."

"Can't. She," motions to Clare,"would get fired."

"Look," I said, slapping my palm on the counter. "It is not my choice to return this. The pattern is defective! It's not my fault!"

"Well, it's not our fault, either," Penny said. "It's the pattern company's fault."

At this point, I knew that logic or even actual thought would not get through to these women. So I gave them a fake address.

"Drivers license for verification?" Clare asked me.

"You have got to be KIDDING me! I don't have it. I have nothing with me but my keys and this pattern."

Clare looked at Penny. Penny looked at me.

"Skip it," Penny said.

Clare nodded and pushed the next key.

"Seven dollars and seventeen cents?" I yelled. "This pattern costs $11.95!"

"That's what the register says the pattern is worth," Clare said.

I grabbed the pattern envelope and all its contents from the countertop. "Forget it. FORGET IT!" I looked at the three ladies who had been at the cutting table when I entered and who looked now like they'd rather be anywhere but here. I strode toward the back of the store muttering at the near top of my voice.

"Sell me a DEFECTIVE product and then SCREW me out of FIFTY PERCENT of the COST." Oh, I was in rare form. When I reached the cutting table, two new women were there in their matching green polos. "Are you the manager?"

"I'm *a* manager," one woman said, which killed me.

"Listen." I stopped and put my right hand to my forehead. "I am up to here. I bought this pattern, it has the wrong instructions, and I'm given the third degree, and then I don't even get a full refund."

"Well, patterns are always 40-percent off, so it probably just rang up what you paid for it."

I left, pattern in hand. Eff them. By this time, I had four minutes to get to the preschool, which was no challenge at all, my right foot suffused with enough adrenalin to make it 90 pounds heavier than usual. I caught my breath, picked up Lex, who started to test me but then looked at my face and clammed up. I got him strapped in to his booster, started the car, and was driving down the road when I called Monstro.

"Hello?"

"Hey, it's me," I said. "I am afraid that I did not comport myself with decorum and grace today."

"What happened?"

I told him. "It's probably just as well that I left when I did because I'm pretty sure they were about to call security."

"They probably already had," he surmised. "Look, I yell at people all the time. It's good for them. Wakes them up from the ridiculousness inherent..." and so on and no-wonder-we're-in-a-recession, look-at-what-passes-for-customer-service, yet-another-reason-to-not-buy-American.

"I might feel a little bad if it turns out I did pay $7.17 for it," I said.

"Don't. They're not worth regretting," he said.

So it turns out that yeah, I did pay $7.17 for the thing, but it also turns out that the wrong instructions at least tell me how to pin and mark the pattern to the fabric, and it's only got four pieces, and I do have a Master of Fine Arts degree, so I can probably figure out how it goes together and Babykins will look resplendent, and then nobody will be there to see it because the baptism's the day after July 4th and our entire church and all our friends will be out of town.

At least I can rest easy in the assurance that God laughed his ass off at me today while Jesus just put His face in His hands and shook His head. But there's not a whole lot of reassurance in that, is there? Yeah, I don't think so either.