Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda, Gotta

Every week, we take Jess to playgroup. (Unless she's sick, because you know, we're nice parents and don't want to spread germs to other people. Or unless I'm sick, in which case I usually send Kevin by himself. Or if Kevin's sick, in which case we just don't go. But we're mostly not a sickie household, so generally, every week on Tuesday, Kevin comes home from work, we get Jess into her shoes and head off to Lynnhaven Mall)

The play-area at Lynnhaven is really nice. The floor is covered with several layers of foam before a colorful carpet was put down, so falls are generally unremarkable. The whole thing is done up in an ocean-scene, complete with giant whale tunnel, giant octopus, turtles and whales to ride, and four slides (shaped like a shell, snail, pirate cave, and whale's tail).

There are padded benches around for the adults to sit and chat and the whole thing is fenced in, so there's not much chance of a toddler wandering off (well, unless some STUPID FUCK leaves the gate open, which unfortunately happens a little more often than perhaps it should) and it's relatively clean. All the toy things are coated in this foam stuff and then a thick layer of rubbery plastic that's painted. Easy cleaning, easily repaired, hard to hurt yourself. Jess loves it because she gets to run around and scream. We love it because it's safe and she likes it. The mall loves it because we drive all the way to Va Beach to go there, and we shop at that mall, and we go to the movies over there, rather than the mall that's right across the bloody street from us.

Well. Usually we leave the house right after Kevin gets home from work.

I woulda... Except that I was playing Warcraft and some girl helped me out with a quest, and I told her I'd help her out with her quest, and... it was a collection quest. And for the first 20 minutes or so, we got exactly none of 5 items. And then we got four. And Kevin came home... and... it was another 20 minutes before the last one finally dropped. Typical.

Putting off leaving for that long got us right into the middle of the worst traffic between here and Lynnhaven, so a normally 15 minute drive took almost half an hour. Except, you know, we coulda taken the interstate. We almost never do, because the interstate at 5:30 is a nightmare. And the back roads are a nightmare at 6. SIGH.

The first half hour of playgroup was relatively fun. Jess ran around like a maniac with some four year old boy and there was another father there who was, honestly, funny as hell, although a little too loud. His comic timing was great, tho, and Kevin and I spent most of the time alternatively making sure Jess wasn't yanking the arm off her new boyfriend, and sniggering at the things this other guy was saying.

Then... She showed up. We've had dealings with Her before. I call her the psycho-lady. She's got three kids between ages 3 and 6 and a half. She's got all her kids on various different kinds of psyche meds, and she honestly ought to go on them. Her kids seem fine to me, she's the one who's completely nucking futs. She yells. Her threats usually go something like this, "If I have to tell you one more time not to say 'bananapants', I'm going to wring your neck." "What are you, my personal critic? If I wanted to be told what to do, I'd still live with your grandmother."

A few minutes after they arrived, Kevin and I are giving each other significant looks.

"Where's my cell phone?" She says. She digs through the diaper bag and her purse, naming every single item in there. Finally she comes to the conclusion that she must have left it in the movie theater.

"Ma," says the six year old, "You shoulda checked before we left, to see if you had it."

"Jeffrey Allen," she snaps, "You are six and a half years old. If I wanted to be told what I shoulda done, I'd have brought your father with me."

"But Ma, if you had checked then we wouldn't have to go back," he says. Personally, the kid is right. She should have checked before she left the theater. (I admit to frequent not-checking myself, but that doesn't make the kid any less right.)

"What I shoulda done," she mutters, putting the little girl into the stroller, "was have an abortion."

Jeffrey Allen looks at her sullenly. "Bananapants."

They leave.

Kevin turns to me. "Sweetie, we gotta leave, before they come back."

Posted by tisfan at September 27, 2006 09:52 AM