Dubious

I didn't want to title this "child abuse" because of the search engine bots . . . but the subject of the day is: child abuse. Not overt, call the police, have social services come in and check abuse. More like, "Boy, is that kid going to be f-ed up" situations.

Let's start backwards. I was just at Target . . . with Mason. I know his name is Mason because his mother said it at least 500 times while I was looking at cheap clothes. Now it doesn't take me more than say . . . a half an hour, tops . . . to do the clothing department at Target, including underwear and socks. So there was rarely a moment in that 30 minutes that I didn't hear the word "Mason". Mason was situationally deaf and chasing his sister through the racks. This would have been fine if Mason was under six and his sister wasn't screaming "Mason" to go with his mother saying "Mason". "Mason, Mason, Mason, MASON, masonmasonmason." Mason was probably about 12.

Now the child abuse going on here is that his mother kept making ultimatums that she wasn't going to keep, which is why Mason is twelve and thinks it's still cool to run in the women's department at Target. If he was normal, he would be playing video games in the electronic department. "Mason, STOP that." And Mason would just keep doing what he was doing.

I couldn't figure out if I wanted to hit his mother . . . or tell Mason to stop it and really mean it. I have a feeling that if I had turned and told him to knock it off, he would have.

Before I went to Target, I was at the mall. Somehow, I ended up in Victoria's Secret . . . until I remembered why I don't go into Victoria's Secret. So there is this family there. Yes, family. Mom, Dad, and three year old with mega-stroller. Didn't look into the mega-stroller to see if there was a baby because I was too distracted by the father holding up sheer lace underwear and saying across the aisle "Honey, how about these?" Maybe they have a great sex life. And that is wonderful. But I don't think their three year old boy needs to know that Daddy wants Mommy to wear slutty panties. Personally, I know I didn't want to know, so I can only imagine . . .

Last incident, which was actually the first incident of my day. I used the free parking in Royal Oak which meant I had to walk past the library. There were two blond, either nannies or mommies on the lawn. I do not make direct eye contact with mommies because it will make my ovaries explode with envy. So I didn't take much notice. However, there was this adorable two year old running around. He was trying to take his clothes off, which I thought was very reasonable. It's hot and clothes, they're bothersome. And then I heard the sorority girl voices.

"What's he doing?"
"(Sigh) I don't know."

They sounded like teenagers, the nanny/mommies . . . so I hoped they were nannies even more.
"Dragon? Dragon, what are you doing?"

Dragon had his shirt over his head. That's right. Dragon. I didn't hear it wrong, because I heard it repeatedly. The kid's name is Dragon.

"Dragon? Do you need to go potty?"

Dragon didn't need to go potty. Dragon just wanted to be naked. And if my name was something like "Dragon" I might just do the opposite of whatever my sorority mother said. Just because she named me Dragon.

Dragon just smiled at his mother and her friend and continued to try for nakedness. He was pretty far away from his mother, so he might have achieved his goal before she got to him.

I hope so.

So three cases of obvious child abuse that I can't call anyone about. Dragon is going to have to go to middle school one day, with that name. That poor three year old in the Victoria's Secret is bound to have issues . . . and my darling Mason, who I'm sure will be kicked in the head once or twice in prison. Because, Mason, you can't do whatever you want in the real world. No one will be there to say your name endlessly. They'll just either hurt you, or call the police. And the fact that all of these parents managed to find someone to breed with isn't making my ovaries feel any better.

Just saying.