Saturday, July 23, 2011

Not a babysitter.

Summer is here, and of course that means that fucking crotchspawn are everywhere. Or maybe it's just that parents are more likely to keep the little bastards out later, so it seems like there are more of them.

I was cleaning up my section last night, and there was a quite cute little girl there with her mom and grandma. She was probably three, chubby and big-eyed with super curly blonde hair. I was sweeping up crayons and ripped-up napkins left on the floor by a bunch of teenagers when I saw her crawl over the back of their booth and start staring at me. I waved – I didn't have to clean up after them, they weren't my table, so I wasn't irritated with their presence. The little girl giggled, then clambered down and came over to investigate the sweeper. Her mom called her and she ran back to the table laughing. I went to do something else and when I came back, the little girl saw me and came running full-tilt at me laughing. I scooped her up and tossed her into the air, figuring if her mother wasn't paying any attention she wouldn't mind me playing with her.

I sat the girl down by their table again and went back to filling sugar packets or some shit; the little girl kept climbing back and forth between the booths, roughly following me. When I got to my last table I had to clean, I was on the opposite side from before, and she climbed into that booth. The other one was empty; this one had some dishes on it.

“What's that?” she pointed at something.
“That's trash,” I said patiently.
“What's that?”
“That's sugar.” I turned to check the ketchup bottle on my table, and when I turned back the little girl had picked up a glass and was about to drink out of it. I think I let out a little yelp as I snatched it away as gently as I could – because it was a fucking half-full pint of beer! Meanwhile, her mother and grandmother were chatting away, totally ignoring her.

But of course, if the kid had chugged down some backwashy Fat Tire, I'm sure they would have sued the restaurant.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I used to run a shop. Parents would say to me "Can you watch him/her?"
I would reply "No", not just because I dislike children, but also because I was pretty busy working / watching £200k worth of stock and quite frankly people, you don't know me from Adam so what is up with asking me to look after your beloved children! I could be anyone! Grrrr

undercoverwaitress said...

I sympathize. As much as I am a huge proponent of children's rights to be treated like human beings, I neither like nor understand inattentive parents. They are the bad eggs that make the rest of us suffer; for example, the PA restaurant that now bans children.

And I completely, totally, 100% agree with confused30something on the strangers watching kids thing. Just because I know what you look like and you are employed does not mean you are not a rapist, serial killer, child molester, or just plain moron when it comes to kids. And would somebody please define "watch?" If you watch a kid run into traffic, well, you were watching him...

shanananana said...

I am currently in the middle of a heated debate on facebook because I complained via status update that a table let their one year old crawl all over the floor in our restaurant during the rush tonight. Apparently, I don't understand how hard it is to be a parent.

Squishy said...

Shanananana-Quite honestly I don't have kids yet but I do have beagles and I watch my one friend's kid quite a bit. When we go out, her little one knows to hold Aunty's hand and to watch out for others. This kid is not the golden rule, but her parents have taught her to be very mindful of things and whenever I watch her it makes it easier.

We had a busy rush during lunch a couple days ago and I had a kid run by me at full tilt and I decided to accidentally be tripped and dropped a hole tray of soups. Whoops!!! Yea the kid had the Ut Oh face on and his mom wailed on him. He won't be running any time soon.

DMT said...

@ shanananana thats true but, you should inform them you weren't brought up to think its acceptable behavior for a child to run crawl and scream in a restaurant where other people are trying to do their jobs and other customers who are also paying are trying to enjoy a meal too. That and also that who knows one day you may well be a parent and the other person will still be a self absorbed inconsiderate prick. As I've said numerous times before parenthood is not a form of entitlement nor is it an excuse for not showing consideration to others

dominwaitrix said...

Well, I KNOW full well how damn hard it is to be a parent, which is why I chose NOT to be one!!! Seriously, anyone with a half a brain and even limited powers of observation should be able to figure out that raising kids is no cake walk. Does that mean parents get to slack off in public, whenever they are tired of parenting? Do they just get to foist their kids off on others or allow unregulated noisy, messy, disruptive or potentially self-injurious behaviors? I don't let my DOG behave like that! I have just one thing to say to those parents: grow up!

shanananana said...

@Dominwaitrix: That is exactly what I, along with a dozen or so mothers on my friendslist did tell the parent in question. The thing is that I actually love waiting on kids because they are often the most compassionate and understanding customers in the restaurant, but this mother is notoriously bad.

RainbowChazer's Reviews said...

What do they think us employees are, their unpaid nanny? Uhhhh, no. Not last time I checked the contract of my weekend retail role, I wasn't.

It's called RESPONSIBILITY.

Learn how to perform it, parents, even if you can't spell it!