No, No...Don't Get Up

Sometimes McDonalds makes me feel like a total slacker mom. I mean seriously, who in their right mind willingly takes their children into a McDonalds playland? Where all the badly behaved children of the tri-state area hold their daily conferences? Where sending your kid into the climbing apparatus is basically the same as tossing them into a Hallway of Snot? Where said kids eventually come up to you with some unidentifiable food in their hand snatched from God knows what cranny, and then opens their mouth and shows you the other half of the unidentifiable food object that is probably giving them swine flu or tetanus as you speak?

Well, yeah. That was me today. I couldn't help it, people. I had a gift card.

I tell you what, though. I may feel like a slacker for bringing them there, but I always, ALWAYS leave feeling like, hey, maybe I'm not the worst mom in the world after all. Now, we all know that there have been many, many, manymanymanymany times that I have been that mom with that kid. The one who's hitting or pushing or pinching or performing Chinese Water Torture or what have you. But I've honestly always tried to keep on top of Tate, and if he wonks some other kid's head into a wall, well then..I go up and punish him. He gets time out or we leave or whatever. Crazy, I know. But because of all this, I have a pretty high tolerance for sassy little kids. I get it.

However (caution: I am about to step on my soapbox). I have no tolerance for moms who either pretend not to see what their kid is doing or who see it and just can't be bothered to do anything other than sit and yell "Hey! You better stop doing that or yer daddy's gonna whip yer ass!" and then turn around and eat their 400th straight Big Mac. And all these moms seem to live in McDonalds.

This is what one such lady shouted today.

"Zach! Don't push! Zach! Let's go! Zachie! Zach! Get your shoes! Zach! I mean it! Stop pushing other kids off the slide! Zach! Where are you? Let's go! Zach! I want to go! Zach! Don't kick babies! Zach! It's time to go! Zach! Come over and get your coat and help me up! Zach! Zach! Zaaaaaach! Tell all these other parents to stop stuffing dirty socks in my mouth to get me to shut the hell up!!"

Ok, the last sentence didn't really get bellowed, but if you had given me and a couple of the other parents in there about 1 more minute, it may just have. Seriously. This lady could not get her butt out of her chair. She just sat and yelled so hard she jiggled. For 10 MINUTES. And for 10 minutes her kid ran around like Satan's minion trying to become King of The Germ Crusted Slide by hurling any kid in his path out of the way.

So we left, simply because I couldn't handle the yelling anymore, and because I could practically see bacteria and germs festering on my childrens' skin. Those McDonalds fries lure me in every time, though. I can hear them calling to me frantically whenever I pass by. It's always work avoiding fast food. Even though my mind says "This is garbage!", my mouth says "I like garbage! Put a crapload of salt on it and call it a day!"

Mmmm...salt.