Tales from the doctor's office

Posted by M

This post could also be entitled, "How not to raise your child: A judgemental guide from a highly irritated non-parent."

Recently I was waiting for my husband at a doctor's office. Medical establishments are not known to be the most enjoyable, doolally of places, but for the most part the only battle is against people who insist on:

a) Sharing their illness with the room.

I'm just here for a check up!! >:l

b) Sitting right next to you when the room is empty.

Do you not get enough social interaction or something?! Yeesh.

Anyway, when I entered the office, I was actually pleasantly surprised by the quietness and seemingly unsickness of all who were there. It's an Urgent Care Centre (like a mini-hospital), so I was truly relieved when I didn't see anyone with gushing wounds or looking like they were going to need a vomit bag any second.

My husband was eventually called in, and I sat pleasantly scrolling through Pinterest on my phone. About a minute passed, and a lady entered the room with her small child of about 3. I smiled pleasantly at her and the child, as that is the "proper" thing to do when you see a well-behaved child. I even found it kind of cute when the girl proceeded to play with a Disney Princess microphone, happily singing away.

And then it happened. I don't know if it was the chocolate her mother gave her (a Halloween-sized Aero Bar), or her trip to the bathroom (pre-empted by a loud "I HAVE TO POO MOMMY"), but whatever it was, it was like the child was taken over by some horrible, loud and obnoxious being. She was, in essence, the Rubrecht child.

Now, if you don't know who Rubrecht is, you need to watch the classic Steve Martin/ Michael Caine movie, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (check it out here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eF8QAeQm3ZM ). Suffice it to say, Rubrecht is a character depicted by Martin who is a totally disobeying, loud, socially unacceptable child who has to eat with a cork on his fork. The cork on the fork is unimportant to this story, but makes me laugh EVERY time.

So the next HOUR went a lot like this:

I'm not being mean, the kid's hair really did look like that. She fell off a chair and rubbed her staticky toy all over her head.

Imagine Fay Wray from King Kong seeing the gorilla for the first time and letting out a blood curdling scream. This was worse.

Yep, that's spit. She spit on her mom's shoes.

It's times like these when one really starts to debate the whole having children things. Let's just say my enthusiasm was greatly depleated/ pushed off.

Eventually (and by this I mean an HOUR later), the mother moved herself and her child to new seats, saying, "Let's give these people a break for awhile". To which I let out a silent expletive of relief.

Can all the bad parents of the world unite and decide to live somewhere isolated...like the Falkland Islands? Food for thought people, food for thought.