Episode 87: I will rain vengeance upon this playground!

I have used this blog as a forum to discuss my dislike for snooty park moms on plenty of occasions in the past, but up until today we have never actually had any sort of confrontations with them. Usually it is just their demeanor and attitude that bothers me, but they keep to themselves and we keep to ourselves and it is fine. Not today. Today, in the span of an hour, there were three separate incidents with moms, the last of which ended with me telling a woman that her son was a 'little shit.' I am still fuming over these, actually. I can almost see the smoke coming off of the computer keys. Here is the scoop.

We hit Forest River a little bit early today as a result of Av deciding that she needed to wake up around 5:45 this morning. This is not good for many reasons, but primarily because when she wakes up that early she is super, super tired just a few hours later. It also sucks because that means that she gets to spend a few hours with Monica before she goes to work, which always results in a hysterical fit when she realizes that her mommy has slid out the back door.

Anyway, we got to the park and headed over to the duck pond like we always do. The ducks are separated from the parking lot by a chain-link fence which the baby likes to walk up to and lean on. She looks through the slots and points and the ducks and laughs. It is a great time had by all. The duck habitat features trees and a few plants that have grown through the fence, but not much else. It is essentially an over grown back yard pond with a fence around it. Not pretty but it serves its purpose. As the baby is looking at the ducks I hear a woman yelling to me from her car.

"Sir, sir, SIR!"

"Yes?"

"You really shouldn't be letting your daughter play near that fence, there is poison ivy all over the place over there."

Now, I am not a horticulturalist, but I know what poison ivy looks like. I also know that the only vegetation that is anywhere near that particular area of fence is grass and low-hanging tree branches. Not to mention, where we were standing is completely clear of any plant life, which is why we stand there, so we can see the ducks. In addition, 'You shouldn't be' was not the proper way to start that sentence. Perhaps 'just a warning' or 'be caureful' would have been a bit more polite not 'You shouldn't be' like you are my fourth grade teacher. My first reaction was to tell this lady to F-off and mind her own business, but I am trying to watch my mouth around Av so I just responded with a sarcastic "Yeah, I'm watching her. Thanks."

The lady kind of gave me a half-smile / half- judgmental eye roll and left in her car, leaving me muttering all of the vulgar things I wanted to hurl at her under my breath. If only that were the last confrontation that I had today.

Once we left the duck area we walked over to the playground. There were three moms there with about five kids. Two of them were sitting together at the picnic tables while the third, who did not know them, was near the swings with her daughter and her dog. As is always the case with Av, the dog got her very excited. She kind of did that shy, walk around in a circle thing until she crept within about four feet of the dog, which was tied to the swing and laying on the ground. She took another step toward him and I said "No, no. that doggy is asleep, we don't want to wake him up, he could get scared and bite you."

It was at this time that the lady, who was right next to us, turned and said with a little bit of an attitude. "Yeah, if you could keep her over there away from the dog I would appreciate it. I get nervous when he is around kids."

Ok. Av and I encounter dogs every day at the park and we are very respectful of their space. We understand that many dogs are not good with children. That is fine. In fact, I will not let Av touch a dog unless the owner says it is alright. When we see people walking their dogs around the park I let her look at them but I don't let her get close. Babies are annoying to dogs, I get it.

In this case, however, the woman brought her dog to a playground. If you are 'nervous' about how it reacts around kids, leave it at home. Don't tie it to a swing set five feet away from a bunch of kids who you know want to come look at it. This is actually the second time in as many trips to the park that there has been a dog we weren't allowed to touch. On Friday a woman with about five kids had some grouchy looking bull dog with her that she kept having to tell people to stay away from. The difference? That lady said the dog is normally fine with kids but it was being grumpy that day. She took it and tied it to a picnic table away from the kids. That is fine. I get that. This stupid bitch today not only admitted that her dog is never good around kids, she left him tied to the swing set at a playground next to about six KIDS. What the hell do you expect, lady? So, for the next 10 minutes or so until the lady and her kid left I had to try and keep Av from running over to pet the dog which, of course, led to a lot of crying. Thanks, lady. You are heartless. Why don't you just bring a giant transparent box of candy and put it in the middle of a school yard and then stand next to it and yell at any kid who wants some.

As if the poison ivy police and idiot dog lady weren't bad enough I then had to deal with the two stuck up moms on the picnic table. Between the two women there were three kids, all of them little boys between the ages of 2-5. They were very rambunctious and very misbehaved. The oldest one, Harry, was firing rocks all over the playground. The youngest one, Charlie, was chasing Harry and pushing him off any sort of equipment that he climbed on, causing Harry to throw rocks at him. The mom did literally nothing except say, calmly, "No throwing rocks, boys." They obviously didn't listen which sparked such effective discipline as calling them over to her and tossing around the idle 'we're going to leave if you don't stop' threat, which was clearly not true since they didn't stop and they didn't have to leave.

I did my best to try and keep Av away from them, but she is curious, so she kind of trailed them around, veering off to do her own thing here and there. At one point I overheard the following conversation, which eventually sparked the conflict that I referred to earlier.

Lady 1: "Harry, don't jump off that, you'll get hurt."

Lady 2: "I'm so glad you said it like that. I hate when I hear moms say 'You'll break your neck.' I feel like that just facilitates that they will break their neck someday."

Lady 1: " I agree. It is like you are asking them to break their neck."

At this point Charlie has climbed to the top of the steepest slide in the playground, His mother tells him not to go down because it was dangerous and then proceeds to explain to the other woman that her friend had a son who fell off of a slide and 'damn near broke his neck.'
"Was he trying to climb up it?" the other woman asked. "No, he was just sliding down and he went about three feet and slipped over the side."

Two things. 1. Any kid who is using a slide the right way and manages to flip over the side half way down is clearly retarded and should not be allowed to slide without A. a helmet and B. parental supervision. 2. If you are that concerned about slide safety, maybe you should stand up, waddle over to the slide and see if your son maybe wants some help.

It is important to note that while all of this was happening Av and I were climbing the steps to go down this exact slide. This is our favorite slide. Her's because it is steep and fast, mine because it is the only one wide enough for my fat ass to fit on. So, without a thought, we climbed up to the now vacant slide, I put her on my lap and down we went. Av's joyful laughter was immediately interrupted by the fat mom on the picnic table.

"Excuse me, but I just told my son that he couldn't use that. Would you mind?"

"Mind what? I am an adult and I was holding my daughter, what is the problem?"

"Well, now he is going to want to go down it. I mean, I just told him he couldn't."

Again avoiding confrontation, but now very clearly agitated considering I have just had my third mom conflict in under an hour, I simply yet very sarcastically said "Ok, Mom, we're sorry" and walked Av over to the other side of the playground where the piano is. The piano is Av's favorite and she was laughing as she played it when Charlie came over and pushed her out of the way, yelling 'No!' in the process. I looked at him and I said "You are not very well behaved for someone whose mother is so strict in policing the playground" (obviously intended for her ears and not his). She kind of gave a look over, but didn't say anything. For Av's part, she looked like she was about to knock him out, and I would have let her. Instead, she just kind of walked in front of him and started using the piano again. This is when Harry came over, that would be Charlie's big brother, mind you, not his mother, and told him that his mother wanted to talk to him. While Charlie got yet another useless 'talk' about 'playing nice' Av moved over to another area. Charlie left where his mom was after his 'talk,' walked about three feet and immediately pushed Av again, this time knocking her over. She again didn't care, got up and kept playing, but it was at this point where I completely lost it. I looked up, saw that the mom was not paying any attention to him and said "You know what? It would be nice if you would watch your little shit son because he just knocker her on her ass again." (So much for not swearing).

"Excuse me, watch your language! What did he do? CHARLIE!"

"Apparently your little talk didn't work because he just came back over here and pushed her."

This is when I picked Av up and brought her over to the swing. About three minutes later the moms were packed up and Charlie came walking over with a poorly pronounced, and hastily delivered 'sorry.' "It's OK Charlie," I said. "Thank you for apologizing."

I hit the mom with a death stare as she left but she wouldn't even look at me. It is going to be a long summer if this is how it is going to go. A word of advice for other parents and people with dogs. Mind your own business and watch your own kids, and if you have a dog that doesn't like kids, don't bring it to a playground. I may have told some fat yuppie mom off today, but that isn't half as bad as what that bitch would have gotten if Monica was with the baby instead. That is a promise.