Please be advised before you read this that I am a jerk. Ok, read away.
Yesterday Sophie had her first occupational therapy appointment (to build strength in her little fingers and hands), at the same place she gets speech therapy. The appointment (which will occur the same time every week) was late afternoon so I had Joshua with me as well.
As I was parking the car, I saw a woman with two boys, probably ages seven-ish and nine-ish, walking in. Both boys were drinking 20 oz. bottles of A&W root beer.
This is the point where I began judging her.
I had never been to the therapy center in the afternoon before, and as soon as we walked in, I was chagrined because the waiting room was PACKED FULL of “big kids”. After-school appointment time. Ugh. There were literally two seats left in the waiting room, one for me and one for Joshua. Mine was of course, next to the woman with the root beer-chugging boys. And even though I am approximately 30 feet wide and there was approximately 30 inches of space for me, she didn’t try to accomodate me at all or even look up. You know that little shift you do when you are in close quarters with a stranger, to try and make sure that each of you has as much personal space as possible? Yeah, didn’t happen. AND she had a giant binder of work-related matter in her lap that was totally taking up some of my personal space and she didn’t give a rat’s @$$.
There is a TV in the waiting room, which is never on, which I am thankful for, because I really don’t want Sophie watching “whatever is available” in the waiting room.
Of course by the time I sat down, root beer-chugging nine-year-old was trying to turn it on and loudly complaining that something was wrong with it while his mother was busy ignoring him. Then, he said, “Oh someone unplugged it! That was dumb!” (Personally, I think it was genius.) Then he plugged it in and turned it on. Great.
It was some weird Toy Story cartoon that freaked Sophie out. “It’s all done, Mommy,” she kept saying, while I tried to soothe her and Root Beer’s mom continued to IGNORE him. She was gave him the occasional irritated glance when he raised his voice to comment on the cartoon but that was it. After about three uncomfortable minutes where I’m sitting practically IN HER LAP and my little girl is freaking about the tv show HER kid turned on, both Sophie and Root Beer Jr. (the seven-year-old) were called back for their appointments. A bunch of other people left, and then it was just me, Mother of the Year, Joshua, and Root Beer Sr.
Mommie Dearest was typing on her smart phone when RB Sr. says, “Mom, what are you doing?”
“I’m WORKING.” she spat back, as if to say, “The sound of your voice makes me want to kill myself.”
RB Sr. continued: “But I saw you smile.”
MD came back with the ever-loving, “OH, so I’m not allowed to SMILE when I work?”
By this time I had claimed one of the other empty seats in the waiting room, where although I wasn’t sitting on Mommie Dearest’s lap, I still had a front-row seat to her kid trying to get her attention and her loudly letting him know that he was not worthy of it.
Now, I will say that he *was* being a little irritating, but I think I know why.
When Sophie’s appointment was over, RB Jr. also came out and RB Sr. went back with one of the therapists. I got my kids and got the heck out of there! I was relieved I didn’t have to sit for another 30 minutes and listen to some more fun family banter.
But there’s always next Tuesday at 4:30! Can’t wait for the next episode of “I treat my kids like crap in public”. Hopefully I’ll keep being a member of the studio audience and don’t work my way up to stardom.
And I really hope that lady doesn’t read this blog.
