I don’t make much secret of my contempt for the ridiculous ways in which modern humans are expected to conform in American culture. It’d be a wonder that I manage to stay out of prison except that I do, in fact, keep my nose clean and do what I’m told the vast majority of the time. We are all conditioned so thoroughly in what is and isn’t acceptable, it seems impossible to set that aside and treat it with any independent examination. And what good would it do? The rest of society labels you a deviant and marches on.
Today’s drama began after work today when I decided the responsible thing to do would be grocery shopping and cooking dinner rather than feeding my boy fast food. I had him all day today, and the moment we left the studio he fell asleep in the car. I stopped by the house to figure out what we’d need, and he didn’t wake up. I let him sleep in the drive. I poked my head in the fridge to see what we needed, came back and sat on the porch to let him catch a few more winks. He barely stirred. Off to the grocery store then, and when I pulled into my parking space and woke him up, he was nearly delirious and told me he wanted to stay in the car.
I don’t make a habit of this, but I’ve done it occasionally when I know I only need a few items. I’ve also woken him up and dragged his floppy, unwilling carcass through the store. I think I’m a pretty good judge of which choice leads to the most trouble in a given circumstance.
It was overcast, between 70 and 75 degrees, and the windows were down. No chance of heat stroke — there wasn’t even any solar gain coming off the asphalt.
I came back to my car to find a woman hovering there and I knew it was no coincidence. I reached for the door handle and she asked if this was my car. “Yes,” I sighed, “are you going to give me a hard time about leaving my child in the car?” I think she assumed someone so thoughtless was … thoughtless. She made me repeat myself. She told me she’d never seen anything like it and that she thought about calling Child Protective Services.
Two things immediately came to mind: 1) She looked to be about fifty years old and she seriously needed to get out more if she’d never seen anything like it. And 2) If she had any familiarity with child abduction statistics she’d be more concerned with lightning strikes or my family winning the lottery.
Unfortunately I chose to express those points in the same order they occured to me. I got the first out. “I just don’t know what to think. Well. I think you’re a dirty hippy.”
Touche, bitch. Them, as we say, is fightin’ words.
Never did I raise my voice, nor did I threaten to return her nose to her asshole from wence it so clearly had momentarily escaped. I moved on to point two, but I only got the first two words out before she was walking around my car, reading off the license plate, and repeating it to herself like some horrific mantra. I kept starting over, each time with a “Ma’am” and each time she’d say the plate number again, convinced I was just trying to throw her off remembering it.
I smiled and asked if she’d like my driver’s license as she dove for cover into her car.
I called K__ and got her take, and while she wasn’t thrilled, it wasn’t grounds for a child custody battle.
I really, really try to be civil with people, but I think there’s something about my demeanor that says, “you have fucked with the wrong person, and now I am going to rip your skull open and eat your brains raw, with my bare hands, right here for everyone to see. Perhaps it will serve as a warning to others.”
I’m not sure why, because I’ve never done this, eaten someone’s brains in public, but perhaps since I’m going to be treated that way regardless, I’ll start. (Mmm, brains).
As usual, I thought of my best retorts several minutes later. The more I thought on it, the more offensive the whole thing was: You think I’m such a horrible parent? Where the fuck were you when there were dirty diapers or a wet bed or a nightmare or fever or vomit or skinned knees or dinner to be made or laundry to be done or pre-school to pay for or ABCs to be taught? Where’s your sense of urgency about my parenting when there’s anything to be done besides have an uninvited opinion? Shouldn’t you be contributing to his college fund? When your kid (if you even have any) is still in therapy and living at home because he/she never learned to wipe their own ass, mine will be a rock-star millionaire because I taught him to be self-reliant and think for himself and take a tiny bit of responsibility.
I got into the car, and I__ said, “Daddy, I didn’t like that lady. She was mean.”