I just MUST rant because I want to hear comments like, "That happened to me too... or I hate that... or damn girl, are you an asshole magnet or what?" Minipeaves, Papa & I went to The San Diego Children's Museum and Chuck E Cheese this past Sunday.
The Children's Museum, was a planned thing because Papa and Uncle Sam were going to the Padres game and me and MP were gonna spend a few hours at the Children's Museum. When we get there we find out it was FREE! Hallelujah! Turns out the second Sunday of the month is always free there. So, being a stingy b@*&#^ that I am, I am overjoyed. We also get a free goody bag with a yo-yo and a generous portion of Ghirardelli's Chocolate inside, which I also am happy about. This pleased me greatly. There is free entertainment from San Diego Dance Troupe and a reading from some author of some children's book.
Soooo, Papa leaves and it's me and a napping MP, in which she wakes up and begins her squeals of, "Let me out of this stroller because I want to RUN, RUN, RUN!" So, I parked the stroller and had her hold my hand because in the main hall, there are these giant wooden seguay type vehicles, maybe thirty of them in which children are riding around like maniacs all over the floor. There are kids jumping on these bean bags for people to sit and a HUGE cube, made of chalkboard that kids are writing on, scraping nails, and chalk all over it. The woman at the front told me that the entire first floor was age appropriate for toddlers... okay minus the wooden seguays and 10-13 year old kids running around, there was the texture forest (2 and under), tent city (which had some difficult climbing, and a monkey bars type of obstacle course) and clay room, where kids were firing up the kiln. (I just LOVE when MP says, "Mom, can we fire up the kiln? because I would just love to make you a vase right now!)
We played on the chalk board... which was okay, except the chalk kept slipping and her fingernails kept scraping on the board. Then we painted with black paint in the art for younger kids, they only had black paint, and we managed to get that on everything. She liked it, so I can't scoff at it. (Darth Vader wrote her a love note.) Made our way to Tent City where she got knocked down almost immediately by a kid who forgot his ridalin. So, we went towards Texture Forest, where it says right at the entrance, "2 and under only." It was a really cool little room with this soft turf, and bouncy mushrooms and squishy tunnels and trees. The pond was made of memory foam. MP and another 18 month old were in there for like 30 minutes playing when a group of about 4-6 boys, (my guess in age 8-10 years old), and their chaperone, (who was clearly just plain out of it.) The first thing one of the boys did, was pick up a foam rock and chuck it at the other 18 month old girl, Alexis, who was already frozen with terror when they ran in howling like monkeys. It hit her square in the face and knocked her down, immediately causing her to cry. Her mom, ran to her and took her out immediately and I started making my way towards MP who was hiding in a foam tree oblivious to what was going on. The chaperone of the boys paid no attention, and looked like she was jonesing for a cigarette. To make an even lovelier experience, one of the boys kept brushing past me and placing his hand on my butt and slightly snickering. So, I'm instructing MP not to come out of the tree yet because these boys were throwing each other across the room. (Literally, and stomping and throwing everything in sight.) I think they could have thrown their slightly drugged chaperone and she wouldn't have evn known. In the meantime, about two more babies came inside the playroom and were trying to play. MP, backing out of her tree stump... me about 2 feet away from getting her, gets stepped on by an overweight 10 year old boy who doesn't even notice she's there. MP screams, and I pick her up and she does not appear to be hurt, just frazzled. Finally, the chaperone whispers, "I'm sorry." To me. And I tell her to get her kids out of the room because this room is only for very small children and her rambunctious boys are clearly not two. I instruct her to leave before they hurt someone else. She whispers sorry, and tries to get order of her group. It takes them a few more minutes and they leave. The other mom's inside thank me for telling that woman off. And it's happy again in the texture forest now that the rough ogres have left. My question I am posing on everyone is, What the hell is wrong with people? And, my other question is, Why does it always have to be me to say something? Discuss.
My other rant is going to be about Chuck E Cheese. We went on a busy day because we were meeting someone there. The Chuck E Cheese location we went to is GHETTO- it's always cramped. I prefer the one in Mira Mesa because it's never that crowded and seems to be cleaner than the Sports Arena one. So, I'm not complaining about ALL Chuck E Cheese's just the one on Sports Arena in San Diego. All the people who work there look like they could be carriers of E Coli or Hepatitis. The bathrooms are filth boxes that always smell like shit and vomit. MP and I were playing some kid game where these ping pong balls pop out of the top and you are supposed to catch them with a bucket with a handle. She LOVED this game, so we wasted most of our tokens on this. I had her on my knee and put our token cup on the floor next to me. (like 6 inches away from my foot if that). A little boy (no older than 5) was lurking behind me. So, I moved over so he could see the game, at least I thought he was waiting for the game. He was actually looking at my token cup. All of a sudden, he snatched my token cup and I was shouting (only because it's super loud in there!), "Uhhh, excuse me, little boy?? That isn't yours..." for a minute I thought he must have thought it was his token cup but the little booger knew what he was doing. He ran away, with our cup and I chased after him with MP in tow... then he reached into the cup, grabbed a small handful of tokens, dropped our cup and disappeared into the crowd. I had moved about, 5 steps away from our game... and we had gotten about 4 tickets... in which time a little girl saw me leave the game and snatched the tickets out of our game. We were double crossed! Oh man. Here is what I did... I found the boy, hung him by his toes and dipped his head in the toilet... no, actually I didn't do anything.
I'm going ti ask again, what the hell is wrong with people? Should I have said something? It really wasn't the fact that I lost 2 bucks in tokens, I would have given that kid our tokens if he asked...(really!) But the fact that he was scoping out the crime scene and actually knowingly stole something, and ran away. What is this? Who are his parents? I am a little disheartened, and I know it will get worse when MP goes to school. But I don't want it to. Anyway, comments? Complaints?
