In Illegal Pursuit of a Spiderman Backpack

When it's too hot, people tend to act a little crazy.

Combine a week of temperatures over 100 degrees with stressed out parents freaking out the day before school starts, and you have a recipe for LA insanity.

I wish I could have avoided venturing out into that insanity. Unfortunately, yesterday afternoon, after doing a final inventory of my six year-old son's school supplies, I realized a new backpack was needed. Last year's Batman backpack...well, the Batman decorations were falling off. As much as I didn't think this was a big deal, my son definitely did.

Was I going to be the parent who sends their son to first grade with a jacked up backpack? It was tempting. After all, I'm only a couple of days off of hanging out with Amish people in Indiana. They do just fine without a whole lot of stuff. Surely my son could do without a new backpack?

Alas, I loaded the family into the car and we headed to the Target at the Glendale Galleria. Once there, we headed up to school supplies central on the second floor. Slim pickings were to be had. Nothing but pink and leopard print backpacks. Clearly, none of those were going down with my son.

Then I spied a little sign that said, "More Backpacks On Third Floor". So, we trekked up to the third floor where we totally lucked out! There was one Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle backpack and one Spiderman backpack left! Whew!

My son quickly chose the Spiderman backpack and then we headed back down to the second floor to check out the crayons. And that's when this loony lady decided to try to jack my son's Spiderman backpack out of our shopping cart!

It's not like I'd abandoned the cart or anything like that. Nope, I was crouching right next to it, digging through the school supply rubble. My three-year old was hanging off the side of the cart. He's the one who raised the alarm.

"Hey! That's not your backpack!" I heard him yell in his loudest, most outraged voice.

I looked up to see this awful woman clutching the precious Spiderman backpack in her meaty hands. Her expression clearly showed that she couldn't decide whether or not she wanted to put the bag back or take her chances and run with it. I was absolutely shocked. My kids though...well both of them started yelling at her.

"It's a backpack stealer!" screamed my six year-old. "Get her!"

My three year-old jumped off the side of the cart, ran toward her, and, to my horror, pulled his fist back and slammed it forward into her gut!

The woman let out an anguished squeak, threw the backpack back into the cart and then turned and fled. My eldest son yelled down the aisle after her, "YOU BETTER RUN! YOU STEALER! THIEF!"

The little one just had his dukes up, yelling, "I'm gonna kick your butt!"

What in the world??? It took a couple of minutes to calm them down. They were busy giving each other high fives and victoriously shouting, "We stopped that thief!"

Yes, they definitely had...but what the heck was going on? Attempted Spiderman backpack theft in Target? Who in the world does that? I can only think the heat must have had an effect on homegirl's sanity. And as awful as it sounds, I'm sort of glad my little boy socked her in the stomach like that. Of course I gave him a little speech about not hitting people, which he still believes does not apply to thieves. Gosh, he really thinks he's tough now.

This morning, I successfully got my six year-old out the door with his brand new backpack all filled with folders, crayons and pencils. He's excited to tell all his first grade friends about his adventure with last night's wannabe backpack thief.

As I walked him down the hill to his school, I noted that his version of events had expanded to the wannabe thief cowering in terror all night long.

Whether that's the case or not, the thief probably slept a little more comfortably last night because the much needed cool-down rolled in. Let's hope that means her (hopefully) heat-induced backpack thieving insanity has come to an end.