Monday mortification: Parental edition

Oh! I have a great story like along these lines. Years ago, I was standing in line at the bank on a Saturday morning. The line was huge; it went way beyond the area that's all sectioned off with those velvet ropes and was filling up the lobby. I had been standing in line with my sister for over half an hour and everyone was feeling kind of annoyed and irritable because the line was moving so slowly. We had at least another half hour to wait. There was a mom and a little boy who was probably four or five, and he was getting more and more frustrated and telling her he wanted to leave. He whined, he cried, he begged. Everyone around him was also getting annoyed because he kept getting louder, and she kept telling him she had to cash her check. She tried to reason with him, and command him and placate him - pretty much anything to make him stop. As more time passed, everyone was now ready to kill the kid, because even though we all knew it wasn't his fault, he was driving everyone nuts. So then he starts threatening her with ways he's going to embarrass her and make her leave. I can't remember anymore what he said at first, but it was stuff like "If we don't leave right now, I'm going to tell everyone here that you swear! I heard you say H. E. double hockey sticks!). It was actually a little bit funny at that point, because it was just stupid stuff that he thought would mortify her and she just told him to pipe down and behave. Then he looked at her and his eyes were absolutely blazing mad, because he knew people were giggling at him (and not really with him), and he screamed, "IF WE DON'T LEAVE RIGHT NOW! I MEAN IT....RIGHT NOW! I'M GOING TO TELL EVERYONE THAT YOU WERE LICKING DADDY'S DINGLE THIS MORNING LIKE A POPSICLE!"

There are really no words to describe how quite it got as she whipped him out of there! Then people started laughing and making crude jokes about mom's popsicles and dingles, and it actually lightened everyone else's moods a ton. But I can't imagine that poor woman. The bank itself was in a medium sized city outside Boston, but lots of people in the bank know (knew) each other from the area around there, or the Catholic church and school right across the street. I didn't know the woman, but I always wondered if other people did. My sister and I couldn't tell the story without howling with laughter because it was just so funny in such a cringe-inducing kind of way. When we told my mom the story, she insisted that the mother shouldn't have grabbed him and left, because she just taught him that having a fit would get him what he wanted. I still shake my head that she thought the poor lady could just stand in line for another 30 minutes after that. It makes me laugh right now, remembering the whole thing, and I still get second-hand embarrassment for that woman. I wonder if that's some kind of family lore in their house now.

/r/blogsnark Thread Parent