Newsgroups: alt.foot.fat-free,alt.slack

Subject: Manse Diaries: Car Babies

From: nospamum@radix.net (MegaLiz)

Date: Mon, 17 Nov 1997 15:39:36 GMT

It started with carpet spots. "My" carpet has so many spots that we

have begun to use is as a psychological test for guests. They have to

figure out if it's from black coffee sneezes or from Spunky de-bunking

the spill-proof guarantee on her Tippy Sippy Cup or from ill-mannered,

miniature, one-legged robots who have just come in from the mudfest.

It's a trick question, really, because it's all of the above. To make

up for THAT, they get bonus points if they can find both of the carpet

Crab Nebulae.

Because I hate carpet, and I hate psychological carpet even MORE, I

decided to check with the grocery about renting one of their whatsits

for spewing and sucking expensive carpet foam. Now I don't know about

YOUR grocery store, but mine has a little bulletproof manager's

cubicle for just such questions. It isn't really worth noting, so I

will, but this security feature is made wholly ineffective by the tiny

little conversation grate in the glass. When you mumble a request into

the grate, the helpful manager readily opens the door so that

she/he/it can hear you better. So if you MUMBLE, "Gimme the cash,

asshole," you're in like Errol Flynn.

As I approached the cubicle, I groaned inwardly, seeing a large,

earnest-looking woman hovering in front of the window. She looked like

the sort of customer that was going to need some time - some of MY

time. So I gave it to her and studied her tidy children while I

waited. They looked like a pair of Britbrat princes, just in from a

smashing bout of cricket. They punched each other gently and playfully

and seemed content to do this for an entire day, if necessary, whilst

mummy completed her telephone business. I resented her luxury for a

little while, just to pass the time. If it were MY spawn, they would

have ransacked the candy aisle and taken at least one elderly hostage

while I made a simple phone call. I can't even call 9-1-1 without

GENERATING an emergency.

I heard her describing a car into the telephone receiver. She finally

finished and slid the receiver back under the little window to the

manager, who was practicing Good Safety. I decided that she must have

had to call for a tow truck and pitied her while determining that I

couldn't help, unless she and her princes were willing to squat in the

back of my van with some food bags in order to get home. I must have

had that, "What can I do?" expression on my face when she noticed me,

because she started to explain her call. I immediately backed up,

because she was nearly a head taller than me and she was positively

quivering in her lovely, enormous sweater.

"Someone left a baby in their car out there!" She emoted.

Confused, I turned around to sort of verify that Spider Monkey was

still in my grocery cart. "A baby?"

"A little baby." Big Mummy shook her head. I was beginning to get the

idea that she had called the police. (There hadn't been any sort of

intercom announcement like, "Would the idiot with the baby in the car

please report to the manager?")

"Was it crying?" I asked.

"No," she was starting to look at me like I was just another alien

retard, after all.

"Good thing it's not summer, I guess..." I ventured as I pushed

forward to quiz the manager. She left, probably certain in the

knowledge that my baby is doomed to Stupid Care.

I mumbled to the manager and he opened the door. I didn't rob him.

***

Scouting the parking lot just a little on our way out, I didn't see

any abandoned babies. I'm not sure what I would have done if I had

seen one, but I imagine that I would have told the bag boy about it so

that he could keep an eye on the situation, just in case it was

actually abandoned.

Personally, I never would be able to leave the baby in the car. I have

this paranoid fantasy that if *I* ever left a kid in the car, nohow young it was, it would choose that opportunity to learn to drive.

That's the only harm in it in cool weather, unless you have an

overactive imagination and think that someone is going to steal your

kid. As I understand it, infant-napping--I should say infant theft--is

incredibly rare, because virtually no one who has ever had one would

want to STEAL one. People go to some amount of trouble regularly NOT

to have an infant. Duh.

Still, I have to admit that I recognized Big Mummy's outrage. Here

she's been doing All The Right Things for her princes and she simply

cannot believe to this day that people can do illegal and possibly

foolish things with their children. I can imagine that and much, much

more. I can imagine mothers who let their kids leave the house in bad

haircuts and everything.

Does a mother who leaves her sleeping infant in a locked car while she

buys a dozen eggs deserve to go to jail? PULEEZ! If bad judgement were

truly illegal we'd never be able to find any GUARDS because we'd all

be inside the biggest Big House of all time.

Cleaning carpets takes hired muscle; cleaning minds does not. If

anyone really wanted to FIX the situation they would have only to look

for the tiredest woman in the store.

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* "Okay! Okay! I'll NEVAH EVAH do it AGAIN!" - The Spunky

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