1. I'm not a kid person. All my plants are dead. I'm not planning on parenting. I hold off on pets because I'm one of the most selfish people in existence. Children = howler monkeys.
2. There's a whole lot of kids up in the Wal-Mart. Most of them are good enough. It's the parents who ought to be shot and hanged.
3. When one wanders up to the Service Desk, disheveled, crying and face covered with a mix of candy bar and nose leakage, saying that "I lost my brother," ... I'm not unfeeling. I'm just not quite equipped to handle the situation.
4. Me to him: "OK. Where's your brother? Is he in the store? How old is he?"
5. "He's 12. We was in the toys and he went off to find our mother." What great fantastic parenting going on here.
6. Me: "What's your mother's name? We'll call her. You want to sit down right there? I'm sure she'll be here in just a minute."
7. He give me the brother's name and the mother's name.
8. Some bratty punks getting a check cashed melted at the sight of the little ragamuffin and were crowded around him, asking him for high-fives and telling him he was a good boy and asking him all sorts of questions to get the stormclouds off his face.
9. I'm just not good with children.
10. We wait. The punks sit down next to the kid and tell him he's being really brave, ask him how old he is and more questions. He's clearly upset about not finding the brother and they're doing their best to keep his chin up.
11. We wait some more.
12. I'm getting alarmed at this point. Where is the other kid? Where's the mother?
13. Just as I pick up the phone to call a manager and start the process for a CODE ADAM and to have the police called because this kid is obviously not supervised, the older brother walks by.
14. The older brother is unrepentant and pissed off at the little kid. "Where have you been? We've been waiting in the car. Mom's ready to go. C'mon."
15. Like I said. Great parenting going on here. I guess she expected the kids to walk across a parking lot by themselves and dodge traffic like some sort of Wal-Mart version of "Frogger."
16. I remain grateful to the formerly bratty punks who had been acting up for helping me out with the kid. Maternal and paternal instincts pop up in the strangest places.
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15 comments:
This is so true.
Except in my store the howler monkeys need to be beat and shown some discipline! lol not when some little kid is pulling at the pen pad pen going no hunny dont do that nooo hunny stop blah blah blah.
i love your blogs! its so funny! its the thought of every retail slave!
These are the same parents who show up on the news after their kids have been abducted and they just CAN'T figure out how it happened. I also suspect they're the same parents who leave their toddlers in the car with the engine running and doors unlocked and then are SHOCKED when someone takes off with the car with the kid still in it: "I was only gone a minute, blah, blah."
This happens on a weekly -- well, more often than that most days. Being a mother myself, my daughter does not leave my eyesight. I know I live in a somewhat small town, (yet biggest in our county) but some people just understand that the age of letting your children run the town at a very young age is over -- has been over for quite some time. I remember when you could leave your doors unlocked and not even bat an eye. Parents would let their kids walk to the lake, library, or parks - and I'm scared to let mine play in the yard.
For all you parents out there that let your kids run amok, shame! shame, shame shame! Especially those rotten parents that told their kids they could walk to our store (We are actually just on the OUTSIDE of town it seems - these kids walked almost 3 miles...) while you went to the BAR. and MORE shame on you for being TOO DRUNK to come get them at 10 p.m. when they called the BAR (the 11 year old - oldest in group- KNEW the number by heart) and begged for a ride from you. You were LUCKY one of the cashiers knew the one kid and happened to be leaving in 20 minutes - because I was going to call the POLICE and get you for CHILD ABANDONMENT. People like you do not DESERVE CHILDREN. What if they had been HURT?? Would you be too drunk THEN? Or snatched off the side of the HIGHWAY they were going to have to walk down in the DARK?
for shame, and sorry for the rant. *whew* i feel better.
If I ever have kids, just my experiences watching how people (don't) parent theirs in my store is an education in and of itself.
Parents ignoring the mess their kids are making, temper tantrums, preventable accidents, letting their kids crap in the fitting room and then run away from the scene...
I'm sure I could do better than these people. I'm sure of it.
Huh, by the age of twelve I'd been staying home alone with babysitters for 4 years. Some of that time while living in a foreign country.
Once we were back stateside, it wouldn't be unusal for me to get up early in the morning, get on my bike and go, and not come home until dinner time. Dodging through a Wal-Mart parking lot wouldn't have been an issue.
Of course, I was never dragging around a younger sibling. Though I wouldn't have left them behind...that woulda been a whooppin'
Yeah, I remember running loose in the toy department when I was younger. Let Mom look at the boring clothes etc. But if we'd acted up, we knew it would be CURTAINS for us.
Still, I have to wonder whether there's a connection between kids not being able to run loose these days & their bratty attitudes....
We have Target with Code Yellows. Imagine my surprise when some five-year-old crying kid walks about asking for his family (Mother, Father and two brothers). After scouring the store and paging till the overhead speakers blew out, the management decide to report abandonment to the police. Right as the call was going through, the family strolls around. Fourty minutes AFTER the first page. "I guess we're done shopping - stop fooling around!"
That was the most non-chalant child pickup I've ever seen.
I was walking into a Walmart once a few years ago and a small child and his smaller 3 siblings wandered up to me in tears. He couldn't find his mother. I told him we'd go inside and have management page her.
His first instinct was to take my hand (I'm a guy), but I said no, just stay close and we'll find your mom. I sure wasn't going to be a victim of mistaken persuasion.
Anyhow, right as we're parading inside, there's mom, checking out. The kids all ran up to her and she started chattering in a foreign language, so I hightailed it out of there.
There's a real good chance she never figured out what happened.
I don't see how parents don't even get the slightest bit freaked out when their child is gone in a public place like a walmart. Its just ridiculous.
Absolutely disgusting.
Why does it seem that the majority of people who have or can have children are the WORST parents but those who cannot would make excellent parents?
I agree that people like this should not be able to have children and they're usually the same people balling on the news when their kid is abducted or lost.
It's sad when the shallow gene pools reproduce...
You have to pass a test to drive a car but you can pass the condoms, reproduce and destroy a life without any test...just sad.
BTW if any of my girls acted up in a store I would leave...mind you it only ever happened once...honest to God!
I was in Walmart in Luray, VA when a Code Adam was announced. I headed over to the toys (as the description of the child was 6 yr old male) and yep there he is! The Wlamrt employee promptly took him to his mommy.
The mommy panicked? was she putting on? I'll never know.
The employees did a great job at shutting down the exits and searching the store.
Happy ending.
Reproducing should NOT be a RIGHT, it should be an earned PRIVELAGE.
My former neighbors allowed their UNDER TWO YEAR OLD child to toddle around outside UNATTENDED at night! They'd come out on the porch and yell for her to come in! During the day was no different, she'd come wandering around the corner into our back yard and her 'parents' were no where to be found.
When they came home with their 2nd child, when the baby was 2 weeks old, they had it outside, on a blanket in the June Southern Summer sun, bottle propped in his mouth, no cover for the baby, mom parked in a chair, feet up, drinking a six pack of something another alcoholic. PLEASE DIE! (people like this)
Anyone catch the news story this week of the 6yo who was tied in a car..hot car..windows rolled up..while his 'parents' ate inside the Cracker Barrel? There was a gun in that car too!
talk about great parenting at walmart: I watched a lady pushing a cart with her infant in the basket, and what did she choose let the child suckle on? a plastic bag from the produce department. I'd be surprised if the kid didn't choke on it or suffocate itself.
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