Alex has an anger problem. He always has, really. From the moment he was unceremoniously slapped on my belly after birth, he opened his gaw up and began to shriek (maybe it was the realization that we were his parents’) only to be comforted by the insertion of my nipples. I only wish I were exaggerating.

Thankfully for all of our eardrums, I had decided to breastfeed. And breastfeed I did. For the first 6 weeks, it was near constantly, and only not completely constantly because I occasionally needed to do such mundane things such as pee and I do have *some* need for privacy.

I’d not had much experience with seeing breastfeeding mothers in public aside from the scarily creepy woman from my teens. I was working as a hostess at an upscale joint on a busy weekend afternoon, when I noticed a woman sitting on the floor in the middle of an aisle.

As I walked past, I saw that she’d placed a blanket on the floor and was breastfeeding her baby WHO WAS LAYING ON THE FLOOR while she continued conversing with her table. Now, my complaint here was not that she was breastfeeding but that the poor baby was laying on the floor among the dirt and moreover blocking my damn way.

I figured with as immodest as I am, as long as I don’t intentionally expose my child to the gross germs of a restaurant floor I was pretty okay with breastfeeding in public. I bought my Hooter Hider (yay!) and was off to Target with the Sausage Brigade. Alex, being who he is, immediately upon seeing the beautiful clean aisle upon aisle of The Happiest Place On Earth, freaked the fuck out and wanted to nurse.

Because we needed groceries regardless of his tirade, I covered up with the Hooter Hider and finagled and wrangled the baby to latch on while trying walk and most importantly NOT DROP HIM ONTO THE FLOOR even if he keeps latching and unlatching and shrieking. Let me tell you, it was TOTALLY AWESOME. And it happened each and every time we went out: I broke my back trying not to flash anyone, while nursing the baby AND trying not to overheat us both while walking about the store.

It took several weeks for me to hit my breaking point. This weekend, while trying to keep my frantic baby latched on while sifting through all 6,000 yards of fabric of the Hooter Hider I had officially HAD ENOUGH. I took the Hooter Hider off and whipped it out for all to see and proceeded to finish my shopping, breast hanging out and all daring anyone to mess with me.

Luckily, considering the evil mood I was in, no one even batted an eyelash at me.

The Sausage Brigade, however, seemed to be slightly embarrassed.