What the Monkey?

The kids and I took a trip to Old Navy today. Destroy needs some school clothes before he starts preschool in a couple of weeks. If you've ever been to Old Navy you'll know that they have these big buckets of bright shiny balls right at kid's height. So we make our way back to the toddler section and the boys find the bucket of balls. So I spy some cute brown corduroys and walk over to them with the kids and balls in tow. As I turn around to make sure they were following me I see a ball bouncing away and a little girl sitting in a pristine pink stroller, with pink shades slightly ajar on her little head. A furious Dad pushing the stroller looks at me and says,

"Your kid just hit my kid in the head with a ball!" He says this to me without even checking to see if his daughter was OK, who, by the way didn't even flinch. So I tell Destroy that he needs to be careful because he just hit this little kid in the head. So Destroy proceeds to go put the ball back because he knew he had just made a mistake. I tell the man, who is still standing there, that I was sorry (in kind of a sarcastic tone, which he probably caught) and he leaves. The woman next to me who heard it all just said, "Amazing" to which I replied, "Yes, I thought we were all trying to raise our kids here". "No kidding" she says. Meanwhile I am trying to get Search into the stroller and he's really resisting. Through his screams I could hear the same man over near the ball buckets talking loudly. I go ever there and he has found an Old Navy store employee and he is pointing at Destroy who is putting the balls away. He is obviously explaining to the employee what had just happened. As I walk over the man points right at me and exclaims, "That's the mom!". The employee tells me that I can't allow my child to throw balls around (from the bucket which holds tons of bright, shiny balls right at kid's eye level). I look the employee in the eye, and I can see the man in the background, and I say, "Some of us don't have children who will just sit in the stroller". The man behind him heard me and walked away.

So with only a couple of 5T shirts I walk up to the check out with two unhappy little boys feeling like I was about to break out into sobs. The little girl's mom is up there talking to the same employee assuring him that the little girl was in fact, just fine. After this whole incident I thought of a millions things I wanted to say to the man like, "good luck with public school and soccer games". I looked for him when I went outside but I never saw him. Good thing, I probably would have run him over.

I'm still seething and it's already been a few hours. Am I alone in feeling like some people are so retarded? I completely agree with the guy that Destroy should not have thrown the ball in there, but did he really have to react like that? I know I wouldn't have. It seems that in order to raise a child it takes a whole community, but with people like this around I feel very alone in raising my kids.

Here's a funny link of a mom in a store with her kids. Be sure to read the description too!http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130144061675