Things that annoy me...the photoless edition

If you participate in the Friday Show and Tell that's the theme this week. Things that annoy. If you don't...well, you should.

In the quest for a very cheap suction cup bow and arrow set for the upcoming Indian Birthday Party I found myself at the local mall. I'm not a big fan of the mall in general, especially this one but I was told I could find exactly what I needed at the dollar store there. A dollar for two bows and eight suction cup darts....perfect.

Well, any trip to the mall with the girlie usually starts or finishes with Camp Bucky a climby thing in the middle of the food court for wee-ones. So she's climbing and sliding. I'm looking around. A little girl walks into the area and sort of wanders out...stopping to look around when she does. She is about 3-4 years old with no parent in sight. She hangs out outside of the entrance for a few, waiting for her mom and then walks away. Looping in and out of tables. She turns towards the bathroom, walks a ways and then turns back. She stops to look at the lower level and then walks away. At this point I'm alternately watching her and looking around for the sure-to-be panicking mom. No dice on the mom and now the girl is almost out of eyesight. I tell the cleaning lady that that girl has been looking for her mom, because it's too far for me to run with my own girlie and could she please go get her. Not the best solution but I kept my eye on both of them.

The cleaning lady sets off. And comes back girl in tow. Still no mom. It's been a minimum of five, maybe seven or eight minutes. Well, the lady brings the girl over to the ride-on things next to the climby area and is hanging out there. Here comes mom. Burger King bags in hand and a nice vacant 'hmmm, if she's not here I wonder where she could've gone to look' in her eyes. She puts her food down, parks her empty stroller and wanders over thru the climby area, around some chairs and then finally to where her girl is.

I stew for awhile while my own girl plays. I'm not ususally confrontational. I hate it. But I would've exploded had I let it go. So I walk up, and tell her how lucky she is that it was I that was watching her daughter and not some skeevy pedophile. She explains she "was just..."
I cut her off with a "I know...you were at BURGER KING, but you had NO idea where your daughter was...I watched you look for her. She was gone and returned before you even knew."
She is not at all apologetic, instead she looks at me like, well, what do you expect I was in line - not rude just with out any idea that what she did was asinine... She says..."I know, but I was..." I said, "you don't deserve her. Next time hold her hand."

And I left. I know, kids escape. They run, they hide, you look away and they are gone. It happens. But generally, you panic. You call their name and hug them tight when you get your hands on them. You don't wait in line for your french fries hoping they'll still be there when you're done.