So Glad I Don't Have Children (language)

[csquared]

Screaming, bratty kids can become instantly more cute - when they've walked out the door and are going away from the toy store.

Everyone brings joy to a room.

Some when they enter.

Others when they leave.

[taxguykarl]

OK I give up: Where's the LIKE button?

[Android Kaeli]

On the shoes part:

Working at Random Craft Store has made me realize just how many people think its okay to walk around a store barefoot. I'd need at least four or five pairs of hands -- in addition to my own! -- to count the times I, myself, had to tell people to go put some kind of shoes on. Because it's not like no one has EVER broken a glass vase before.

[LadyAndreca]

Hardware store. Concrete floor. Chances are that whatever broke on the floor was hazardous as well as sharp.

Thankfully moooost parents know it's not a good idea to let their children run wild around The Orange Apron, but toddlers will be toddlers and tear off without warning. Today was cute, though. A couple was looking at washing machines, and their little girl, who couldn't talk yet, would toddle over and babble at me while pointing at the computer, then shriek and run back to her dad when I said hello to her.

[ladydyani]

Well BrenDAnn, for so many parents Toy Store=Free Daycare

Perfect place for a relevant Queen of Wands, yes?

[taxguykarl]

Perfect place for a relevant Queen of Wands, yes?

Good one....and then there was the classic about a woman leaving her mentally handicapped son at a bookstore.

[Lace Neil Singer]

Well BrenDAnn, for so many parents Toy Store=Free Daycare

Used to get the same shit back when I worked at the pet store; I even had a sign up with "This is a pet store, not a creche". So many parents would dump their brats in the pet store and wander off to go and shop, that I developed a system. I would call over my manager, who would take the kids to her office. When the parents came back, I'd let them panic over the fact that their children had vanished for a while, then go over and tell them that their kids were in the manager's office cuz they were found wandering around by themselves traumatising animals. I'd call the manager, she'd bring the kids to the store and give the parents a bollocking, ending with, "If you do this again, I'm calling the police and reporting you". Never had to carry out the threat once. Why the hell do these people think that leaving small children alone in a store, with sharp objects, a busy car park and main road, and lots of adults around to bump into them is ever a good idea? If you don't want to cart your kids around with you when you shop, either shop online or get a babysitter.

[Sparklyturtle]

That was one of the reasons why my former boss, the chief of the physical therapy section, made the rule that children weren't allowed in the section under the age of 10 unless they were patients. People would bring in toddlers and expect me to watch them while they were undergoing treatments. The incident that made my boss put his foot down was when a woman left a 3-yo in our waiting area, and while I had a line of patients ten deep trying to check in the little girl started screaming for her mama and went running up and down the halls of our clinic. The techs had the nerve to yell at me for not watching the little girl, but I set them straight. Since we catered to a military community the parents could take their children to the base's child care center, but people didn't want to do that because "that costs money." As I recall, when I worked at the clinic in the late 1980s the base's child care center charged $3.75/day, more if the child was in diapers, so it wasn't that expensive.

[eltf177]

Wow Sparklyturtle...

I hope you didn't get in any trouble over this incident, and I'm glad your boss put his foot down on this unacceptable practice. I wish more would...

[Dreamstalker]

Every so often I have to help mom with her shopping, and one of the places we go is a restaurant-trade-only wholesaler out in one of the industrial areas. Not a warehouse club, they cater direct to foodservice only. Half the building is a cold/freezer room for perishables (quantities are not really suitable for a single person or even two, most of the frozen food packages are not fitting in a home-size freezer), and the smallest can of beans one can buy is a #10.

They have a big sign on the entrance "NO CROCS, FLIPFLOPS, OR OPEN TOED SHOES". Yet for some reason on weekends we see plenty, worn by people who are clearly not involved in any foodservice capacity. I've seen kids with sandals riding on carts (again there are signs "Do not let children play or ride on carts") and running loose while forklifts are running around.