Well it was amusing to me at any rate. It is also completely true!
Yesterday (Saturday morning), I was standing in line at Woolworths.
It was the express lane, but let me tell you there was nothing EXPRESS about it!
Why do I ALWAYS pick the slow lane?
So while waiting in the slow lane something very amusing happened.
I mean it was so amusing I don’t think even comedy skit writers could have dreamed this up.
Like the siren on an approaching police car, I heard the small child crying as she came closer …
Well I’m sure it started out as a cry …
It had actually reached that stage just a notch below scream proportions …
Anyone who’s been around kids knows it.
I mean it’s the kind of cry that makes you think somebody lost a limb …
If nothing else, I’m thinking that a trip to the hospital is in somebody’s future.
At last I see the source of the hideous noise…
A noise that makes me wonder why I drank so many bourbons last night and how on earth did I manage to be in THIS Woolworths on THIS day at THIS time?
The source of the noise is a young girl perched on her mothers’ hip …
As I see her, she stops her tirade …
She has blonde hair and is wearing a pink dress with a blue vest over it.
Her face is blotchy and red …
Little tears running down her face …
She’s actually pretty cute …
Oh it’s nearly heart-breaking …
Then that god-awful noise starts again …
Yeah, it’s no longer heart-breaking …
I just wanna kill the kid …
Anything to make her be QUIET!
But then I’d have to leave the slow lane … and it’s my turn next!
Oh well …
The mother then puts the little girl down on the floor, takes her hand and walks past me on their way into the store.
I think, Geez is that safe? Didn’t the kid break a limb or something?
She walks past me …
She looks at me with defiance… it’s that look that all mother’s who have screaming kids in public have …
I try to give her a sympathetic smile …
But the kid’s piercing scream continued …
I think my smile looked more like a grimace with one end of my mouth upturned …
Okay, I made a stupid face.
The mother continues walking and then I hear her say in a nice but firm tone …
“Look darling, Mummy doesn’t think you’re a dog …Mummy just thinks this is easier is all”
What … the … heck?
I mean this kid is like five years old …
Isn’t this the kind of thing that you’d only bring up with, oh you know, a psychological practitioner of some sort?
In confusion, I stare at their backs as they walk away from me.
And I suddenly notice …
The kid is wearing a vest that has a leash coming out of the back of it!
The leash is attached to the mother’s wrist!
Yep, the mother was walking the kid like it’s her dog!
Oh. My. God!
I have heard about these things… at the time I thought it was a strange image …
I also thought that for some kids it could be useful …
I remember one time, when I was about five years old; I lost my parents in a shopping centre.
I cried for ages until someone took me to the information desk with the microphone and they called out for my distraught parents to come and collect me.
If I had had a leash, I wouldn’t have had to go through the stress and worry …
And my parents would have obviously benefited …
But you know … it NEVER occurred to me … that a young kid would watch you put the leash on the dog to go for a walk … and then watch you take out a similar contraption to be put on herself …
And be offended!
I thought the psychological trauma wouldn’t kick in until much later in life …
That poor kid!
What a smart kid though!
Man, that’s the kind of trauma that makes you become a serial killer isn’t it?
Mental note: Don’t be living in this town in about 15 years time …
Dear God … did the kid see me?
