Thursday, April 17, 2008

Thank You For Your Contribution

There've been few times in my life that I've been rendered speechless, but I'll be damned if one such time didn't happen tonight. It happened during dinner out with Pet, in a Mexican restaurant, which may or may not remain nameless, depending on how I feel at the end of this post.

Pet and I were at dinner this evening, a little girls night out, if you will, when I happened to glance off to my left (not too left, mostly in a diagonal direction), and I noticed that there was a Small Terror, jumping on the seat of the booth against the wall. (You know, that description doesn't quite do the scene justice, so let me try again.) The Small Terror, who was about 5 years old, was jumping as if he was on his very own trampoline that had accompanied him to the restaurant. My first thought, as it would be with any rational adult, was to look for the mother of Small Terror, and when I saw her seated on the outside of the booth, I realized I knew who she was, or at least her type - she was Oblivious Mom. Oblivious Mom was focused rather intently on her food, and I know this to be true, because she didn't even seem to notice when Large Terror, who looked to be about 8 years old, stood on the seat and climbed over her in order to get out of the booth.

I was amazed, I was astounded, and I was absolutely and totally traumatized when I realized that this person had not only procreated, but was inflicting her spawn on me and my dinner.

I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised when Small Terror ducked under the table and magically appeared on the other side of the booth, or when he literally (cross my heart, hope to die) placed one foot on the table and tried to climb on the wall of the restaurant. I know I should've expected Oblivious Mom to remain oblivious when Large Terror vaulted over the back of their booth and into the one behind them (which was empty only by the grace of God, I'm sure) so he could attempt to move/play with/destroy the terra cotta planter that rested on the shelf above (and I mean way, way above) the booth, but I didn't. I didn't think that Oblivious Mom would be such a disgrace to parenthood. I didn't honestly think that she'd forget that she had children (who, by this point, had morphed into Terrors) that she was responsible for, or that she had forgotten or just plain didn't know that she had been charged with the formation of the character of these small creatures. I truly didn't think she was such a dumb ass. But you know what? She was.

Now I won't go into how I think this woman is totally shirking her duty as a parent or how I was so incredibly incensed by the behavior of this woman's Terrors that I was this close to asking her why she thought it was okay for her children to act like this in public.

I don't know who she was or where she came from of if aliens had invaded her body and that's how she became oblivious in the first place. All I know is that if you are her, this is what I have to say: Thank you for contributing to the delinquency of America.

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