Crybaby

Last week were some pretty big events at the university. Our office had to staff one of them, a small one with mostly deans, faculty, and some administrators attending. A really nice guy in my office, we'll call him "Guy," was stationed at one point with me. We were basically acting as ushers at the entrance to a theater, and most of the people had already filed in. We were standing there chatting, when a small boy of about eight or nine years old started to climb the many steps up to where we were. I recognized him as some staff member's kid. She always seemed to bring him along on the free events hosted by the university. As he approached, we noticed in one of his hands teetered a rather full glass of orange juice, and in the other, he carried a cookie about the size of his head.

As he reached me, I smiled and said, "Oh, I'm sorry, you can't take that into the theater, they don't let anyone take food in. But go ahead and finish it here or downstairs if you like, then go on in." The boy stopped in mid-step and stared at us for a full 30 seconds or more. Guy and I kinda looked at each other, then shrugged it off. We continued to chat a little bit, but here and there I stole a glance at the boy, who was now looking off into the distance in an almost catatonic state. It was slightly unnerving, but I tried not to pay attention, because I figured he was embarrassed and I didn't want to make him feel more uncomfortable.

A couple minutes later, I looked over at the boy again, this time head tilted down as if in prayer over his orange juice, which along with the cookie, was still held aloft in mid-air. Suddenly, his shoulders began quivering. Then, as if from a dramatic movie scene, you could actually see teardrops begin plopping into his cup, splashing into the orange juice. Stunned, I turned and looked at Guy, who looked just as stunned.

"What's wrong?" I asked. Sniffling and snuffling loudly, the boy cried out, "You won't let me take this in!" Again, I looked at Guy, wide-eyed and perplexed. Wtf? The boy continued sobbing uncontrollably. We tried to offer words of consolation, but it was a bit ridiculous.

Being a teacher for three years, you get used to not only seeing kids cry, but actually MAKING them cry. The first time you do it can be a bit tough. You feel like the devil. But you get over it. Fast. Kids cry. Sometimes YOU make them cry, and usually, it's not anything insensitive or cruel that you did. The first time I made a kid cry, was on the very last day of classes when I caught EIGHT students had copied their homework after one (the class genius). I gave them all a zero on their homework. The class genius wept for 20 minutes. The other kids were nonplussed.

But this little boy was actually kinda pissing me off. So he couldn't bring his juice and big fat cookie into the theater. Big fucking deal. It's not like we snatched them out of his hands and threw them in the trash. If this was the biggest hardship he had to deal with in his life, then his mother REALLY had to get him out more. And if it was some kind of ploy to get us to acquiesce and let him enter the theater, then he was even more of a little brat than I thought. After a few more words of re-encouragement to go eat his cookie and have his juice or to instead rejoin his mother (he didn't), we gave up, and just ignored him. He then sat down on the stairs, folded his arms over his knees, bent his head over into his arms, and just sobbed. I eyed the orange juice, now perched on the step next him, with some apprehension.

Jesus.

Eventually, we went into the theater and left him there. I was wondering where his mother was the whole time, whom I imagined was inside waiting for him to return. Maybe I'm a cold bastard, but Guy works every weekend with kids in his church, and he had pretty much the same reaction. He just uses much nicer words. Beau has no such restrictions.

Later, when I told this story to Beau, he scowled and said, "If that was our son, and you'd raised him that way, I'd smack him so hard, YOU'D feel it."

Snorting, I said, "I wouldn't even raise a girl that way."

Then we continued on with a scathing review of other people's parenting, which is easy when you don't have kids, of course.