The Other Day

I've been cleaning up after a "sick" kid all day, so I've got nothing for you guys.

I put sick in quotations because he's completely fine one minute, completely not the next.

Bizarre. 

Anyway...

I mentioned the other day that we had a pretty awkward (part of) our day when we met friends for lunch last week. Let me tell you why....buckle up, this is a long and bumpy ride....

JJ and I went to McDonald's for lunch with friends last Friday.

They've got this giant play-place inside, so we were going to have some Chicken McNuggets and let the kids go crazy. Due to a couple slight medical happenings going on, our buddies were running a bit behind.

No biggie, we'll just finish eating and wait at the play-place.

So JJ and I want in and there are 2 other children already playing.

One boy, I would guess nearly 5, there with his mother.

Another boy, I would say nearly 3, there with his mother, I'm guessing father, and (another guess) grandfather.

Clearly posted ALL OVER are signs that say, "No Running. No Shoes. No Climbing on the outside structures." etc, etc. JJ seems to be the only kid obeying those rules. I have no idea if the other families already knew each other prior to this day, or if having children playing together just prompted some conversation - but at any rate, they were chatting and seemed friendly when we walked in. 

I take a seat and watch JJ play and make him come take bites and drinks every so often.

The smaller kid keeps losing his shoes, which his mother keeps calling J's (because they were Jordan's and this kid/mother are obviously super cool). So JJ keeps trying to give the kid back his shoes as he finds them, and the mom keeps flipping out that "This kid just will NOT keep his J's on! Come on, baby, get down here now and get these J's back on. You hear me? Come get in these J's!" 

Ok, we get it, can you please just say "shoes" now?

(Don't worry, she didn't.)

So a little time passes and an employee, a woman I would say around my age, possibly a little older, comes in to mop the floors. She puts out the signs, mops, leaves.

Then, the kid who can't seem to keep his J's on runs across the floor.

No one says, "Hey, stop running the floor is wet!"

They're all too busy.

So, naturally, he falls.

Starts to cry.

They go six kinds of crazy.

Screaming. Cursing. Pacing.

The mom picks the kid up and, I kid you not, says, "Your F---ing head! Is your f---ing head ok? Oh, f---!" 

TO A TODDLER!?!?!

The dad starts yelling and screaming about lawsuits, settlements, etc.

His friends, grandpa, whatever they are start encouraging him to go get that b---- and give her a piece of his mind.

I'm thinking, "Dude, my kid doesn't hear this language on the regular. Can you all please stop?"

By this point there's 2 little girls playing now, too.

Just then, JJ (who is in socks) walks over to get a drink.....and falls.

No biggie. Seriously. He slipped, he popped right back up.

Except that makes them all start screaming even more.

"Oh Sh--, Oh Sh--! You see that sh--?!?"

Yes, I did. I saw it. He's fine.

Please don't involve me in this circus, he's fine.

So they get the woman back in the play-place, make her get napkins and dry the floor on her hands and knees. They're yelling at her, berating her. Then she starts to cry. On her hands and knees, while they point to places they want her to start drying.

So now they want a manager.

She goes to get her shift manager.

The first question out of his mouth..."Did the kids happen to be running?"

NOPE!

(Lie. Your kid was running.)

"Were they wearing shoes?"

NOPE!

(Lie. In fact, the kid walks by and is STILL WEARING HIS J's!!! They STILL insist he actually isn't wearing them. What kind of sorcery is this? Are these magic shoes? Oops, I mean J's.)

He says they can fill out an incident report, if they like.

They say, "Well bring 2 of them, 'cause her kid fell, too!"

Ugh.

So here comes the store manager.

Incident reports in hand.

They continue to lie about how everything happened.

They say, "Now he can't take a nap! I can't let him sleep after taking a fall like that. What if it had been a pregnant woman falling? What if he would have started bleeding everywhere?"

What if you made him take off his shoes? 

What if there were 8 days in a week and 57 hours in each day?

What if there was a planet where dogs are like humans and people are their pets?

See where I'm going with this? 

I'm fighting laughter at this point.

By the way, kid still has his shoes J's on through all this.

So she gets all the information from them and then comes over to me.

"Ma'am, would you like to file an incident report?"

Nope.

"Did your child fall?"

He slipped, yes. But he's 3. He falls all the time. He's fine.

We give each other a knowing nod, she says thank you, and she leaves.

They continue yelling, cursing, and loudly plotting how to present this so that they can get "at least something" out of this. Barf.

After our buddies arrived, I got a phone call I had to take, so I went outside.

Once my call was finished, I saw the woman who was doing the mopping out in the parking lot picking up around the building. I went over to her and told her I was sorry she had to go through any of that, that I hated to see her upset and that I hoped she wasn't in any kind of trouble. She assured me she wasn't and thanked me for coming to speak to her.

So, that's my story from lunch the other day.

After they left the play-place, we got to have a nice little afternoon. 

And, thankfully, JJ hasn't tried to use any of the new, "colorful" words he heard (repeatedly) that day!