That’s right- BABIES. Plural. More than one. I don’t feel bad about it at all. An adult student tried to bring her 6 year old to English class today and I grabbed them before they got into the class and said it was against our rules. For some reason, the daughter started to cry. I guess that kid really likes English.

Ah, but THAT pales in comparison to what happened at Kroger on Sunday.

I was innocently minding my own business, trying to catch the sales on carrots and see if the stupid bell peppers cost less than my left arm, when I happened to observe a small child near the samples of fresh pinapple. While she was certainly enjoying the fresh pineapple, she was concurrently REALLY enjoying licking the tasting toothpicks AND PUTTING THEM BACK IN THE BOX. Gross.

Now, usually, I stay out of these sort of things, like the time I watched a kid at QT reach up and put his grubby, dirty little fingers all over the hot dogs on the heat roller things. Some poor unsuspecting person ate his bathroom germs because a kid that would do that would undoubtedly not wash his hands after “using it”.  I didn’t say anything in the store but I railed and ranted in the car for at least 15 minutes (You can ask Alex). 

Okay, so in the past, I haven’t said anything in these situations but for some reason on this fateful morning, my brain made my mouth say, “Hey!”. Alex claims that I said it accusatorily but it was my subconscious attempt to just get her attention so she would just STOP ALREADY. She froze and looked up at me with wide eyes. We just stared at each other for a second and then her mom was clued in that something was happening. Her mom said, “What’d she do?” I told her precious angel had been LICKING THE TOOTHPICKS and then putting them BACK IN THE BOX. The mom started to say something but we were interupted by a sound. A sound that accompanies an image that will forever be burned in my memory.

This precious little 3 year old girl was standing there with her hands on her hips, glaring, and BLOWING RASPBERRIES at me and not in a nice way either. That’s right. Tongue out and her spit was heading my way (I guess she wanted to spread her love to everyone in the store). I guess she didn’t like me spoiling all her disease and pestilence spreading fun.

I didn’t really know what to say so I just looked back at the mom, who rolled her eyes (whether at me or her daughter, we’ll never know), put the kid in the cart, and resumed shopping. The little booger started SCREAMING her head off and staring directly at me. I retreated to the safety of Alex and the cart and we made a quick getaway into the getaway since the crying child was burning holes in me with her eyes. My, how vindictive!

Now that I’ve done it, I’ve decided I’m going to start saying something.

 So, parents, watch out. If your kid is doing something disgusting and endangering public safety, I’ma get-chu.