Can we fix it? It seems we have no choice, quite frankly
My life appears to have settled into a steady pattern of awesome weekends interspersed between truly freakin’ awful weeks. And oh my goodness was today a fine example of that YES IT WAS.
I plan to focus on the weekends, since the bits in between are way too ugly to record, and I would much rather write about the good stuff. So, in the near (or at least foreseeable) future there will be posts about a truly awesome Saturday culminating in dinner with Giggles & Actonb, a very entertaining weekend where I went to a 40th birthday party and a 4th birthday party and I can’t decide which was better (but only one resulted in a deeply humorous text message), and of course a grand final day spent taking excited children for a ride on Puffing Billy rather than watching the first three quarters of a rather depressing football game. This was, of course, followed by a few commiseratory texts to dear friends who had had a very unpleasant afternoon.
However since all of that will take a while to write, this post will be devoted to asking what the freaking hell is up with parents who take their children to Bunnings?
I have been spending rather a lot of time at Australia’s most frighteningly large hardware store lately, as apparently anyone who lacks for projects around the house need only leave a four year old child unsupervised for a minute or two. This would explain a recent trip to buy a door latch because to open our front door one must turn the handle clockwise whilst simultaneously turning the deadlock counterclockwise and a certain smartypants has figured that out. As we do not have a front fence, the idea of our children getting out the front door unaccompanied is remarkably unacceptable.
That little project was easy enough. More complicated was dealing with the after effects of said four year old running full tilt into a sliding door and breaking several of the bits that make it slide. And back to Bunnings we went.
A very nice man pointed me towards the items I needed, explained how to fit them to the rest of the door, and politely pretended not to notice my increasingly blank expression. He concluded by explaining that all I would have to do after installing the runners would be to electrify the door so that children would learn not to run into it, and smiled politely when I asked in which aisle I would find the necessary kit.
So, after a quick dash to the bathroom (which we will skip over, pausing only to note that I am starting to dread the phrase "Hey daddy, I’ve got a great idea") it was off to the playground and the inevitable fun that follows.
So, I must ask, what sort of insane parent says to a four year old "Hey, why don’t you stay and play here by yourself, I’ll be back in a while"? My first act on arriving at the playground was to persuade young Alex (for that, I later learned, was his name) that, even though it was possible for him to walk out through the childproof gate when I openned ito let my kids in, and he had, he probably should actually come back into the playground area rather than running around a big hardware store entirely unsupervised.
I’m glad he agreed, since if he hadn’t, I’m not sure what I could have done to stop him. I do know there are very few stores with more sharp things per square metre, not to mention easy access to a busy carpark and even busier major road out the front.
Also, I’m not one for stranger danger style hysteria, but, quite frankly, any parent who sees me hanging around a children’s playground should perhaps at least check that at least one of the children there knows me before leaving their children alone in my company.
Bundle and Cherub look absolutely nothing like me and were some distance away and inside a tunnel, so why any parent would take one look at me and think "Hey, I think my kids should hang around with that guy" is beyond me. I know I'm not a complete psycho, but they don't.
I am not actually going to grab someone else’s child and do a runner, but it is appalling to consider just how easy it would be. It takes Bunnings staff 10 minutes to turn up when all you want is someone to cut a piece of shadecloth to length. Would you bet your child’s safety on their response time being any better in the case of an abduction attempt?
In the case of young Alex, the scariness only increases when you consider that within two minutes of my arrival at the playground he was chatting happily to me and calling me ‘daddy’. If I ever find one of his parents, I may have a few suggestions to make about some fundamentals of responsible parenting.
Still, in the end all was well. Bundle breathlessly informed me that he had made a new friend named Alex (but not the same one I mentioned earlier), I eventually tracked down someone who agreed to sell me some shadecloth, the lawns got mowed, and we can open and close the door to the study once more.
Now, if I can just get through this week without going utterly mental, I will be able to post about everything else that has been going on, and soon.
I plan to focus on the weekends, since the bits in between are way too ugly to record, and I would much rather write about the good stuff. So, in the near (or at least foreseeable) future there will be posts about a truly awesome Saturday culminating in dinner with Giggles & Actonb, a very entertaining weekend where I went to a 40th birthday party and a 4th birthday party and I can’t decide which was better (but only one resulted in a deeply humorous text message), and of course a grand final day spent taking excited children for a ride on Puffing Billy rather than watching the first three quarters of a rather depressing football game. This was, of course, followed by a few commiseratory texts to dear friends who had had a very unpleasant afternoon.
However since all of that will take a while to write, this post will be devoted to asking what the freaking hell is up with parents who take their children to Bunnings?
I have been spending rather a lot of time at Australia’s most frighteningly large hardware store lately, as apparently anyone who lacks for projects around the house need only leave a four year old child unsupervised for a minute or two. This would explain a recent trip to buy a door latch because to open our front door one must turn the handle clockwise whilst simultaneously turning the deadlock counterclockwise and a certain smartypants has figured that out. As we do not have a front fence, the idea of our children getting out the front door unaccompanied is remarkably unacceptable.
That little project was easy enough. More complicated was dealing with the after effects of said four year old running full tilt into a sliding door and breaking several of the bits that make it slide. And back to Bunnings we went.
A very nice man pointed me towards the items I needed, explained how to fit them to the rest of the door, and politely pretended not to notice my increasingly blank expression. He concluded by explaining that all I would have to do after installing the runners would be to electrify the door so that children would learn not to run into it, and smiled politely when I asked in which aisle I would find the necessary kit.
So, after a quick dash to the bathroom (which we will skip over, pausing only to note that I am starting to dread the phrase "Hey daddy, I’ve got a great idea") it was off to the playground and the inevitable fun that follows.
So, I must ask, what sort of insane parent says to a four year old "Hey, why don’t you stay and play here by yourself, I’ll be back in a while"? My first act on arriving at the playground was to persuade young Alex (for that, I later learned, was his name) that, even though it was possible for him to walk out through the childproof gate when I openned ito let my kids in, and he had, he probably should actually come back into the playground area rather than running around a big hardware store entirely unsupervised.
I’m glad he agreed, since if he hadn’t, I’m not sure what I could have done to stop him. I do know there are very few stores with more sharp things per square metre, not to mention easy access to a busy carpark and even busier major road out the front.
Also, I’m not one for stranger danger style hysteria, but, quite frankly, any parent who sees me hanging around a children’s playground should perhaps at least check that at least one of the children there knows me before leaving their children alone in my company.
Bundle and Cherub look absolutely nothing like me and were some distance away and inside a tunnel, so why any parent would take one look at me and think "Hey, I think my kids should hang around with that guy" is beyond me. I know I'm not a complete psycho, but they don't.
I am not actually going to grab someone else’s child and do a runner, but it is appalling to consider just how easy it would be. It takes Bunnings staff 10 minutes to turn up when all you want is someone to cut a piece of shadecloth to length. Would you bet your child’s safety on their response time being any better in the case of an abduction attempt?
In the case of young Alex, the scariness only increases when you consider that within two minutes of my arrival at the playground he was chatting happily to me and calling me ‘daddy’. If I ever find one of his parents, I may have a few suggestions to make about some fundamentals of responsible parenting.
Still, in the end all was well. Bundle breathlessly informed me that he had made a new friend named Alex (but not the same one I mentioned earlier), I eventually tracked down someone who agreed to sell me some shadecloth, the lawns got mowed, and we can open and close the door to the study once more.
Now, if I can just get through this week without going utterly mental, I will be able to post about everything else that has been going on, and soon.
posted by I'm not Craig at 11:02 PM
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