Fear and Loathing in Barnes and Noble

I don't know when the day will come when I will know without a shadow of a doubt how to handle certain sticky social situations (try saying that three times fast) involving my kid and another child but I do know one thing - If I catch you physically assaulting my daughter I'm coming for you. So you'd better watch you ass.

And no, I don't care if you're only three years old.

Let's start from the beginning, shall we?

The weather here in the Northeast has been sucktacular this summer and as a result every parent has the same frenzied, haunted look that a person gets when forced to spend day after day stuck in the house with small, rabid little beasts with pointy teeth and sharp claws. Or as I like to call them, preschoolers. So yesterday when it rained yet again, I packed up the girls and went to our crappy weather destination of choice - our local Barnes and Noble.

I like hanging out at B&N. Not only are there new books to read to Chicky that I haven't read at least a gazillion times, magazines to peruse, and a Starbucks on site, but there's also scheduled story times for the kids and a germ infested train set to play with that every ankle bitter in a 20 mile radius has sneezed on. Legal stimulants, the ability to look over the latest People magazine without having to pay for it, and a decent case of bubonic plague all in one place. How can we go wrong?

Well, apparently I was not the only parent to have that idea. The place was packed with strollers and mobs of kids were running around high on cupcakes and freedom from the four walls of their home. It was a recipe for disaster but I was desperate.

Chicky and I shared a sandwich (that I ate most of), sat for storytime (that I did most of the listening to), did a craft (that I did most of) and paid for a book for me (what? I needed a reward for all that effort) and it was still raining outside so we headed back to the train set. In hindsight, I know that was a bad move. I should have steered her toward the picture books. But she wanted to play with the other kids and I needed a moment to soothe a squawking C.C.

The train area was overrun with boys which normally is great for Chicky as she's a pretty physical kid. But my girl was no match for one boy in particular. One her own age but much bigger than Chicky, my little peanut.

She had one train, he had five. She wanted to push her train around the track, he wanted her toy to add it to his stash. He grabbed at it, and Chicky - bless her little heart - would not let go. Not even when he dragged her in a complete circle around the train set. Thankfully there was a nice grandmotherly type there to intervene while I shushed C.C.

But where was the parent, you might be asking yourself? Because I know I was. More like, WHERE THE HELL IS YOUR MOTHER, YOU LITTLE SHIT.

No mom, just dad. Sitting right there in front of the action. Busy flirting with a young mother instead of watching his little bully.

Now I don't care if you're a mom or a dad. Parent your damn devil child. Don't sit there and pay more attention to the 20-something mom with the big tits.

I should have left then but I wanted to let the kid redeem himself. Besides, it's going to take a lot more than someone under three feet tall to run me off.

Yeah, bad idea.

Did the child learn? Uh, no. Did the dad take his eyes off the young mother's chest long enough to watch his kid? Of course not. Before I knew what was happening the boy had Chicky in a full on headlock. It seems like he reached across her body from over her shoulder to grab for the toy and Chicky, once again, would not let it go.

Uh uh, see? Now you've gone and pissed me off, kid.

I had to run across the dad's line of sight with a squealing infant in my arms to stop the little bastard boy from choking my daughter. The grandmother again stepped in to help since the father didn't even notice his son was about to asphyxiate another child.

And as I was reaching for the boy's arm to remove it from Chicky's tender throat she, being totally freaked out about the whole thing, picked that moment to push away from the kid, knocking him off balance and causing him to bump his head (lightly, I swear) into the shelves behind him. I'd be lying if I said I didn't take some perverse satisfaction in that.

Oh right, like you wouldn't?

The kid whined a little that his head hurt and still his father couldn't take his eyes off the woman's cleavage to see what had just happened. That was it, I was done. And I wasn't the only one. Three other parents, including the grandmother, took their kids away from the train set and away from the bully. Apparently, he had been a real monster even before we got there. All that was left was the dad with boobs on the brain and the owner of said breasts and their two children.

I try not to be a helicopter parent because I want Chicky to learn to work certain things out for herself. And Chicky has certainly had her fair share of timeouts from being too rough with other kids. I'm not the world's best parent and I screw up a lot, so I'm not trying to pass myself off as Super Mom. But I wasn't put on this earth to parent another person's kid. So when kids could potentially be harmed I have to step in, whether it's my kid doing something wrong or someone else's. There's no question about it. It could have been a dicey situation, the dad could have taken issue with me disciplining his kid (because I did tell the boy before he bumped his head and before he had removed his arm from my Chicky's neck that what he was doing wasn't right and was hurting her) if he had paid attention for even a second and saw what went down. Instead he ended up looking like a bigger boob than the ones owned by the young mother whose pants he was trying to get into.

And she had a ring, dude. I guess he's just not that observant about anything.