Scenes from a mall

The Wife was itching to finish painting the walls in our extra bedroom (which we are now referring to as “the baby’s room”, even though there is no baby), so I volunteered to take The Boy out and about. It was a mixture of about 50% trying to be helpful and 50% cabin fever from not having done anything on Saturday.

The Boy and I headed to the local mall, where they have a big soft n’ squishy playground for the little ones in the food court. It’s got a big slide that looks like a tree, some bugs to jump on, some logs to climb in, all made out of some squishy nerf-plastic composite that is both extremely safe and somewhat disturbing.

As I sat there and surveyed the goings-on, I came to the realization that a lot of people and their kids are fairly screwed-up.

First of all, let’s start with the kids. There’s a couple of basic types of kids at any playground.

You’ve got your Real Babies and Early Toddlers, ones who are so small they don’t really have any idea what’s going on and generally get trampled on by the other kids. Then you’ve got Decent Kids, ones who are just there to have fun while following the rules and playing nice. Fortunately, The Boy seems to fall into this group most of the time.

Alas, logic dictates that not every kid can be perfect, so that brings us to the other groups: jerks, rambos and weirdos.

Jerks are by far the largest component of the playground population. They’re the kids who are invariably still wearing their shoes despite the approximately 10,000 signs telling them not to and end up trampling on all those babies I spoke of earlier. Jerks like to run around, trying to play tag with twelve other kids in an area jam-packed with toddlers and feeble parents. Since actually going down the slide is for losers, they prefer to climb up it or, even better, climb on top of the exterior.

Toddlers and decent kids are merely obstacles to jerk, things to be pushed aside when running laps around the continuous vinyl bench that forms the perimeter of the playground. Jerks are also usually about twice the age that the playground was designed for. (Bossy girls fall under the jerk umbrella because when her suggestions are ignored, Sally Q. Princess has a 90% chance of pushing the offending kid out of the way or punching them until they go down the slide.)

Rambos are the violent kids. They’re the ones who aren’t playing tag, they’re outright trying to kill each other. Seeing all that squishy plastic, their evil little minds automatically think “Wrestling!” and they also set about stomping on the toddlers and decent ones. Rambos are also often able to recruit jerks into their brutish little circle.

For some reason, our local mall’s security guards (quite the crack squad, I assure you) are rendered unable to effectively deal with the rambos. They opt to stand around and stare at them while whispering continuously into their little walkie-talkies. I think they’re afraid.

As an added bonus, we had a rambo with a plastic machine gun at the mall yesterday. The child, who ironically looked exactly like a five-year-old Harry Potter and may have just been trying to compensate, ran around shooting every kid and parent in sight. For kills he deemed particularly juicy, he shouted “It’s kill time!” as he pulled the trigger. As you can imagine, I was thrilled when he left.

Finally, you’ve got the Weirdos – kids who sit there and are confounded by the swing set or who run around muttering jibberish like the Son of Sam. Unfortunately, The Boy sometimes falls into this category.

Yesterday he was displaying the most recent bad habit he picked up from some freak at his school – licking his hand and arms. And I don’t mean quickly darting that tongue in and out – no, he looks like a thirty-eight pound hairless cat taking a bath.

This behavior falls into the “I-don’t-understand-it-I’m-just-going-to-ignore-it” category. Because, believe me, I’ve tried to get The Boy to stop. He won’t. I can threaten him with timeout, taking away the Nintendo, etc., but as soon as that little mind starts to wander, the arm always ends up meeting the tongue. I may venture to the farm store down the road and get him a salt lick if it doesn’t stop soon.

Of course, these kids didn’t develop their behavior by themselves. We have to blame the parents. Let’s move on to them.

The most common type of parent at the playground are the Absent Parents. The truly dedicated ones are actually absent – they’ve dropped little Hitler off at the Bouncy-Bounce and are off to do some shopping while the rest of society deals with their little monster. They usually don’t bother to return to the playground because they know the mall fuzz will have their offspring impounded at the security office.

Most absent parents, though, are physically present. They’re just not there mentally. How else can you explain letting your child drop-kick a one-year-old and then use him as a trampoline while you sit five feet away?

What exactly are these people thinking about anyway? If you’ve ever watched your kid on a playground, you know it’s not the most intellectually strenuous exercise. There’s nothing to do except watch your kid. I guess some people just need to put the ol’ brain in neutral every once in a while.

Next, you’ve got the Instigators. Not only are they glad that little Johnny drop-kicked that one-year-old, they pointed out the opportunity to do so to Johnny and actively encouraged him to teach the weak little drooler a lesson. Sometimes they’re absent when the DirectTV kiosk is showing a football game or a group of scantily-clad middle schoolers are hanging out at the Corn Dog 7.

Then there’s the Protectors. Usually they’re attached to the real babies and early toddlers, but sometimes they hang on long enough to have a three-year-old or four-year-old at the playground. And they’re so ridiculous, even the people wearing SpongeBob training pants are embarrassed to be seen with them.

Protectors are the parents who are convinced that “EVERY OTHER KID ON THE PLAYGROUND IS TRYING TO KILL MY CHILD”. They can’t let little Suzie walk three inches without trying to steady her or making a loud gasp when some other child comes within twenty feet.

As much as Protectors care about the well-being of their own child, they have complete and total disregard for every other living thing on Earth. They live in a Super Mario World-like existence – anything that moves must be evil and should be destroyed.

There was one protector at the mall yesterday who was actually grabbing other people’s kids out of the slide to make sure that her child wouldn’t by endangered by them. (She also didn’t trust her own kid to make it up the three stairs by herself and looked sternly at several children daring to approach within 50 meters.)

Now, it’s important to remember that ALL parents (well, all of the marginally-involved ones) are protectors at some point. But then some of us cut the cord and realize our kids are not bubble children. Watching out for your child is good. Body-slamming other people’s children who might accidentally touch your child’s hair is not good.

Finally, you’ve got the counterpart to the decent kids: Decent Parents. There are approximately four of us in the continental United States.

It’s all enough to make you want to keep the little arm-licker at home.

Upon further review
Something incredible happened at the Super Bowl last night – an actual football game broke out. Even for mid-level football followers like myself, a good ol’ sloppy gridiron battle was infinitely better than the usual sterilized environment the Super Bowl has.

Too bad the commercials sucked so much though. Saved for a brilliant but all-too-short David Letterman promo, I thought the once-vaunted Super Sunday commercial slate was extremely lame this year.

The Idiot’s Guide to…
The cross-section photograph and “Additional Forms” section make this possibly one of the greatest Wikipedia pages ever.