Oh, Longs - When Will I Learn?

On Tuesday, I had to run some errands with Stellan, and Longs was at the end of them. I had everything planned so carefully - as soon as he woke up, I would get him and me dressed quickly, run him downstairs to eat something, we would hit the road and be done in time for his morning nap. You can guess what happened with that carefully laid plan.
By the time we got to Longs, Stellan was pretty antsy. And we were there for a while; our photos were misfiled, we had a large number Mother's Day cards to carefully select for a large number of moms/grandmas/great-grandmas, we were at a different Longs than usual and I was having a hard time finding what I was looking for, etc.
We finally got the the checkout, and by then Stellan had had it with Longs, with sitting in the cart and with life in general. He wouldn't sit down in the seat (no buckles on the cart), he refused to play in the big part of the cart while we waited at the checkout, and even when I picked him up, he kept screaming.
When we walked up to the checkout stand, the woman there promptly walked away. Did I mention we were the only people in line? Yes, she left. I had seen her filling balloons earlier, but I was pretty surprised (and peeved) to see her head back to the helium tank to take care of some more balloons. What was she thinking? There I was, her only customer, with an obviously cranky baby and a cart with not a huge amount of items.
A long minute or two later, she walked back over to the register...and handed Stellan a balloon. With a happy face she had drawn on it. I felt like a piece of scum for all the exasperated energy I had sent her way. She had gone to all that trouble to get my son a present! Sure enough, he loved it. As we left, I experienced one of those moments when you wish you had a personal photographer at your side; Stellan was standing up triumphantly in the cart with the balloon clutched in his hand (and tied to the cart by me), laughing out loud with the delight of it all. Super cute! Instead, you'll have to console yourself with this photo I took once we got home.
Post Script: Stellan was so enthralled that I also managed to make it to the bank before nap time. Oh Longs - when will I learn that you have only my best interests at heart?