CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- A Charlotte mom is getting national attention after leaving a note for some "mean" girls at a local Starbucks.
She was hoping to change their attitude and her efforts are getting a lot of people talking. More than 40,000 people had seen her post in just a few hours.
Michelle Icard is at the Cotswald Starbucks pretty much every day. The author of a parenting handbook works from home, and on Monday she was surprised at the conversation she was hearing at the table next to her.
"They were talking loudly so I could hear every word,” she says of the three teen girls. “I was crawling out of my skin, I was physically bothered by it and I kept thinking, 'this is gonna stop, one of them will say something to redeem themselves,' and it never happened, and as I was listening to what they were saying I was growing more and more uncomfortable. They were verbally bashing another girl over popularity issues.”
She left the coffee shop but says she couldn’t shake what she’d overheard. She posted about it on Facebook.
“I was shocked at the response I got from moms; it really resonated with them and one said order them another round and write a note.”
That’s exactly what she did. She had the coffee delivered and dropped a note at the table about being pretty both on the inside and out.
Mean Girls! #clt author @michelleicard leaves note, coffee after overhearing nasty convo. story @wcnc @5 pic.twitter.com/8t0PbjJOoo
— MichelleBoudin (@MichelleBoudin) May 31, 2016
“I wrote, 'The things you were saying were so hurtful and mean and it would take nothing from you to also be kind.'”
She left the note with them without saying much, ordered them more coffee and posted an update on Facebook.
That post got hundreds of comments in a matter of hours.
“The nice thing was, I had a lot of moms say, 'I read this to my daughter. It's important for them to know your words have an impact.'”