Patricia Larkin of Dingmans Ferry, Pennsylvania, was recently trying to finish up her grocery shopping at Aldi while her 2-month-old daughter Eliana snoozed away in her carrier. But that's when a well-meaning — yet totally misguided — stranger came over and accused her of carrying around a fake baby to steal yogurt. (Yes, you read that right.) In reality, the mom was definitely not trying to make off with hidden cups of yogurt (yummy as they are), but took to a community Facebook page to share the bizarre story and set the record straight.
Larkin tells CafeMom that she was minding her own business when the stranger approached her.
It happened Monday at the Lacey Township Aldi while Larkin was with her husband, Edward, and her daughter Rosalia, 3, in addition to her sleeping infant. Most moms would give anything to have their baby happily sleep through a shopping trip, so by all accounts, Larkin should have been #Winning.
That's when a woman nearby stopped her and said, "Wow you have your hands full!" To which Larkin responded, "Yeah, that's mom life for ya!"
Normally, this wouldn't be a big deal, and the two would part ways with a smile and a nod. But what Larkin didn't expect was to see the woman again at checkout.
Standing ahead of her in line, the woman leaned over to the cashier and proceeded to accuse Larkin of stealing.
Larkin insists she'd stolen nothing, and that to make things even more bizarre, she says the woman also accused her of having a "fake baby" as some kind of decoy.
Um, what?
Larkin and her husband thought the accusation was hilarious.
"My husband and I had a good laugh about it, along with the cashier, who also thought it was ridiculous," she tells CafeMom.
Because the mom thought it was so funny, she decided to share it on the Lacy Township Chatter Facebook page, where people could not get enough of the story.
"To the lady who told the cashier at Aldi that she thought I had a fake baby and was trying to smuggle yogurts out of the store … " she wrote on her post, "1) My baby is 100 percent real. 2) Yogurts are like $.25 at Aldi. 3) I'm lactose intolerant and don't consume any dairy at all."
BOOM. There you have it, people!
Larkin then thanked the mysterious shopper for the laugh and added that she "really needed it because I was up all night tending to my (again,100 percent real) baby."
The post has been shared hundreds of times online, and surprisingly, the woman claiming to be the tattletale stranger even chimed in!
Aileen Krupa, who claimed be the stranger in the story, wrote in to explain her actions.
"It was me and I am not ashamed to say so," Krupa shared. "The baby was sleeping the entire time and was like a dead weight in her arms, as well as, being wrapped so I could only see the babies ear."
Krupa continued that she would have asked Larkin point-blank if she was shoplifting, but she was afraid of putting herself or someone else in danger.
"I did tell the cashier that I really hoped it was a baby," she said. "As anyone in retail can tell you, shoplifting involving babies or baby items is quite common. I am quite glad your baby finally yawned on the check out line so I knew all was ok."
"I'm glad you were amused rather than offended," Krupa told the mom in a second comment.
Although the woman did get (lightly) roasted in the comments for her mistake, she still felt good about what she had done.
"I'm also not going to stop rescuing pets in the street, helping old ladies cross the road, or saying something if I think I see a crime," she wrote.
But Larkin tells CafeMom that she doesn't harbor any bad feelings toward Krupa. Instead, she hopes people will focus on how hilarious this little mishap was.
"I think it's important to see the humor and the good in each situation," she says. "It's easy to get stressed and down, especially as a mom running on little to no sleep."
