And the Winner of the Worst Townie Ever Goes To...

When Amari was just a wee lass I used to take her to our local park. I'd let her stumble around on the tan bark, covertly eat a few pieces, amble up and down some stairs, and navigate the occasional slide. On our early adventures we encountered a wide range of parenting styles - from the basic Text-a-holics (self-explanatory) to the Euphemistics (with children who are assertive and expressive rather than aggressive cry babies) all the way to the What-the-hell-do-you-think-you're-doing-this-is-a-public-placists (i.e. the tweaker dad who took off his shirt to do push-ups in the middle of the park on a cold day in November).

Today, however, I met the most annoying parent of all. You might recall her from previous entries that should have been titled "Get Your Freakin' Snot-Covered Hug-Obsessed Kid Away from Me," or "Please Wipe that Disgusting Green Disease River Off His Face Before Everyone in Toddler Yoga Gets Sick." That's right, the hippie chick with too many kids is back, getting my full attention by being a complete B-Word today. Can you tell I'm a little fired up?

Here's how it went down.

First of all during snack time, her almost two year-old from the previously mentioned episodes came over to our bench to see what was going on. My much more intuitive daughter stuck her hand out to the boy when he showed some interest in her cheese-flavored mini-rice cakes. "No," she insisted, but I interjected and turned to his mom who was approaching now and said, "He's welcome to have some if it's okay."
"Actually, we're mostly vegan," she replied, with only a hint of condescension at this point. I didn't question the mostly part.
"Oh, how about an apple from our apple tree?" I offered.
She accepted. Took the apple and her child and went back to her corner of the park.

For the next forty-five minutes, Jim and I watched her child wander aimlessly around the park while she tended to her infant and her vegan cell phone. In one instance towards the end of our park time, he walked right in front of a moving swing with child. I snatched him up, moved him to the side and gave him a few kind words of instruction about safety. Moments later mom showed up, snatched him up again, and gave us a few words of nothing.

I turned to Jim and made a list of suggestions as to what she could have said, which of course included, "Thank you...Sorry... I've tried to tell him...Vegans consider swings holy and therefore harmless," anything really except nothing.

The straw that broke this camels back, however, came a few minutes later when I went to collect my survival bag from the bench it had been sitting on since we arrived. As I approach, the Vegippie rushes over and shoves our bag of mini-rice cakes her son had obviously absconded with back into our bag.
"Ooops," I said trying to ease any embarrassment she might have felt that her son made off with our food."
"Yeah," she said with indignation oozing from her trans-fat-free pores. Then she huffed off, leaving me feeling for the briefest of moments like I'd done something wrong.
"Did you hear that, Jim?" I asked. He had, so I added, "I think I might have a mortal enemy."

For the next 15 minutes we plotted my revenge and talked about how disappointed she will be when her kids come home from school raving about the corn dogs and Salsbury steak they had for lunch. Revenge included luring her into a friendship with talk of reformed eating habits, home schooling, and how the jet streams off the coast surely control the weather. Then, I would offer her an apple again, maybe several apples, one for each little Hegan. Only my fresh, tree-picked, organic apples, would be infused with the most delicious, hickory-smoked bacon grease her children have ever had. Her whole world would come crumbling down like the wake of an anarchistic-inspired transformation.

Moral: Don't leave your gross, little kid unattended at the park all morning and then get mad at me when he steals shit from my bag. Put that one in your pipe and smoke it Aesop.

T-I- Double G Grrrrrrrrr.