A New Low

In our weekend-long quest to stay out of the heat while avoiding the mall, we checked out not one but two libraries in two days. The first trip was great; nice selection of books, large kids' section, and we even got in on story-time. Young Samson sat on my lap for a good 5 minutes (which may not sound impressive, but trust me) while we listened to a story about going to school. Watching his little face as he watched the librarian turn the pages and point to the illustrations left Vicki all choked up. Ok, me too. But just a little.

Trip #2 was a different story. As Sam was trying to pull himself up onto a rocking chair in the children's section, this girl pushed in front of him and climbed up. Now I'm simultaneously trying to keep him from getting stepped on (unsuccessfully, although he didn't notice), find this kid's mother to give her one of those "this-is-not-my-child-and-I'm-not-free-daycare-guy" looks, and (grudgingly) keep the kid from falling off the chair. She gets up onto the chair, seats herself, and says, triumphantly: "MINE."

To which I replied, with all due sarcasm, "terrific for you" and looked hard at her. Hard like a Jet might look at a Shark. Without the dancing. If they were in the library on a dinosaur rug.

As I picked Samson up to go play elsewhere, Vicki, who was watching (and enjoying) all this said, "what was that all about? You just stared down a two-year-old." First of all, this kid was a big two; she looked more like 11. Or at least three. And I'd give the Pope a Tupac look if he pushed my son out of the way to get on a rocker. Although, actually, the sight of that might make me laugh.

My point is this: parents, don't make other people watch your kids. It's a pretty simple rule: you had 'em; you brought 'em; you watch 'em. This little urchin's mother eventually arrived as Vicki was helping her kid ascend (for the 400th time) the rocker and was all "were you a good girl?" Vicki, being Vicki, of course just smiled. I skipped the hard look this time, but I'm serious, this girl was not only big, but she was bad news. You think those people at Spahn Ranch just decided one day to be bad?