So…
I saw the most bizarre thing yesterday. I saw a woman with two children trying to catch a cab. Now, I’m guessing that she couldn’t have the kids with her off the curb and almost in traffic (like she was!), so she made them stay standing on the curb while she tried her best to stop a car. This would be a good thing, again I guess, except for the fact that there was damn near more traffic on the sidewalk than in the street! Meaning that at several points, the children found themselves in a swarm of people (blocking them from her sight!!), while she was almost turned completely away from them! And to top it off, no one, and I mean, NOT A SOUL, stopped to help them! (Chile, it was apple sauce! I thought for sure there’d be an Amber Alert scrawlin’ cross the bottom of the TV ‘fore I even got home.)
Wait, hold on, let me correct somethin’. One soul did stop…
This Chelsea queen, from the looks of him, shimmered by, but when the poor woman asked for his aid (flag her a cab while she stood with her kids), he just blew her off and swished on over to the opposite curb. Seems Mr. Princess hadn’t even noticed her as much as he was trying to hail one himself. (My oh my, I wonder why those nasty little rumors about my gay brethren being cold, self-absorbed divas who don’t regard women as highly as they pretend, keep popping up? Hmmm… It’s a mystery.)
Now wait, plenty time to tar and feather me later, there’s more…
See, while this mother was strugglin’ for a ride, this very suspicious street person was inchin’ in closer and closer to those chilluns. So close, in fact, that my poor heart was nearly poppin’ outta my chest with fright over their safety. (Honey, I hadn’t seen an advance that obtuse since all those Wall Street fat cats got paid off, uh, I mean bailled out, by the g’verment last week. Hope ya’ll can say, “Madarin”, in Japanese. (Ooops! Did I say that out loud?)
Off The Way, But (A secret message to Congress):
I say stick to your guns and hold on to your gumption, big C. Those ole critters givin’ out orders to you ain’t as powerful as they may seem. Threatenin’ you with their predictin’ and such. You have the Constitution, remember? And it’s a fact: You can’t stop a boat from leakin’ by drainin’ the lake. Any fool knows you have to stop up the hole in the boat to keep it from sinkin’!!!
So, you stay cool and be sure to read the fine print. Think about America’s future, not the pocketbooks of an undeservin’ few. Don’t get bullied into signing over $700 billion of our money. You’ll be cryin’ for that water sho in the world, come drought.
Anyway, back to it…
So, the situation was lookin’ rough. The kids had started to move away from where the mother had left them, and Mr. Creepy was givin’ them a strange contemplatin’ look. So, ya’ll know Caramel had to stop and try to help.
Uh oh!
Now wait a minute. Before some of ya’ll that know me scream, I want you to know I didn’t approach the mother or the kids. I told you, I learned my lesson from that “Great American Sista Slapdown” I had this summer.
(BTW, still ain’t nobody been able to explain to me yet why folks let their children run all over a store or restaurant, tearing up the place and annoying everybody, then get swole when you say something to ‘em about it. I’m still waitin’ on that hot news!)
The “Great American Sista Slapdown” Side Bar:
See, I was in this cute little upscale spot dining and having a little evenin’ with a friend of mine when this child comes up outta nowhere to our table and proceeds to screech at the top of his-obviously very healthy-lungs. Well, we musta jumped a foot, me and my friend. And our damn near olympic jumps made the little devil laugh and laugh as he ran away back to his momma’s table. (I know, don’t it sound just too cute? Hmph! Well, it ain’t.)
Me and my friend both nod a bit to the somewhat, but not nearly red enough, mother and she…now, here’s where it gets weird…she goes back to conversatin’ with her friend at her table and ignores her child! No “sit down”, or “stop it and come here!”. Nothing. Meanwhile, the child is runnin’ round and generally creatin’ a terrible atmosphere throughout this restaurant. And mind you, this ain’t no family style sitchtiation. This is a place where you don’t stroll out full ’til you done shelled out at least $50 or so. ok? Meaning, it’s a grown folks restaurant!
The child just keeps on ’til he ends up at another table and does almost the same thing to this old couple, but he adds in a hand slap on the table’s edge for a little variety. They didn’t jump like we did, but let me tell you, they gave some loud looks. They were not featuring this tot one iota. (Now you know when old folks ain’t feelin’ a child, things is bad.)
So, the old lady, trying to be nice, says loudly, “Where’s your mommy, little fella?” He just laughs and runs back to his momma who whispers over to them, now a little embarrassed, “Sorry”. They sorta accept that and get back to their meal. (But you can tell they had their good eye on that little runt and were plottin’ somethin’.)
Meanwhile, things actually got quiet for awhile. As I remember, the mother spoke to the little monster and he sat his dumb butt down. Finally…until…the unbelievable went down.
What you ask? Well…
This..this mother…gets up and goes to the ladies room, leaving the child in the care of her very inept and very red-faced friend!! Why was her friend lookin’ like a hot sunset on an LA beach? ‘Cause that child commenced to serving us “shows”, honey! He hollered and howled and ran to and fro and there she was, this woman’s friend, trying to catch him and cajole him, and do anything to shut..him..up! But he wasn’t having it, honey. He was too busy gunnin’ for his Tony nom for “Best Little Asshole in New York.”
And that’s when it happened.
“Little boy, go and sit down! This is not your living-room!!!”
I scared the shit out of him. He stood there frozen in time, justa staring at me. Deep in a trance brought on by the pitch and timber of my ancestrally skilled voice. (Movies and plays have been written about this very thang.) His little brain was so mussed up from the southern power of the Caramel sound, that he rocked back, had a brief hang time, then fell, splat, right on his butt!
The whole place fell out laughin’. And I mean LOUD! (We didn’t mean to…) He turned so many shades to deep purple red, it was like that chile in Willy Wonka who ate that blueberry gum! Oh, it was deep.
He breathed in for what seemed like a solid minute, (calm before the storm), then, oh honey, he let out a sound that man nor beast had never heard before or since. Tears started comin’ so fast out his face, it looked like they was water beads popping out his eyes. It was awful. I actually felt bad for him. (We all did suddenly.) So, I got up to walk over to him and help him up, you know, comfort his little self, ’cause I thought he might go into convulsions. (Let me tell you, this boy is headed straight for Hollywood, you hear?). I was just about to him when his momma, who had come out the loo and witnessed this, stopped me in my tracks with a face so pinched, she coulda shot a single laser outta her joined eyeballs. The sista was pissed!
(Yep, you heard me, “the sista”. See, I didn’t tell you at first ’cause, for some reason, whenever I’ve told this story to people, they always assume I’m talking about an apple. Hmm. Don’t that beat all? See, we got some out there stuff going on on our side of things too. Crazy ain’t no respecter o’ persons. Rich, poor, black or white, If you the chosen one, you as nutty as a bedbug!)
“Don’t touch my child!”
‘I was tryin’ to help him.’
“By yelling at him?”
‘No. By helping him up.’
“I saw all of it.”
‘Really? You saw him runnin’ all over this restaurant and didn’t do anything?”
(Oh Lawd, why did I say that.)
She puffed up, ready to whup my ass and I prepared to defend myself. (What I like to call my “relaxa”. A punch so swift and good, it stings both your eyes and leaves your hair bone straight.) So, I was ready!
Suddenly, the old lady jumps in between us, scoops up that little cryin’ brat, dusts him off, and puts him right into his momma’s arms, cuttin’ her a strong look. See, she couldn’t hit me if she was holdin’ him, and if she was to set him down, she knew it would give me time to set up somethin’ painful for her. It was theater, people!
She shot me a few more daggers then went back to her table, her friend motionin’ for that check. And I went back to my grown folks evenin’ a little wiser about back talkin’ a momma. It was the Great American Sista Slapdown…that never was. But I learned a lesson:
Don’t mess with nobody’s child unless you ready to throw down. Rght or wrong, they’ll come for you and it’s a toss up if you’ll win. Even with a “relaxa” in your repertoire, you could still go down. Mad parents fight tough and sometimes dirty, plus they got all ‘o they children’s angels defendin’ ‘em. So, if a child is tearing up your evening or ruining your shopping experience somewhere…ask for the manager. Let him risk goin’ to hell for hurtin’ some chile’s momma, while you get to just keep on with your day.
Back to Jenny off her block…
So, instead if jumpin’ in like I have in the past, I just hung back, stuck close to the curb, watched old street pervy and vowed to catch any of those two younguns in case they wandered out into the street, since the mother was otherwise engaged.
She finally got a car and I was relieved when she and her two got in and sped down the road.
One thing still moved me though:
That old pervy mista who was creepin’ in close, well, he looked relieved too. Seems he was, like me, one of the few folks who noticed what was happenin’ with this woman and her kids. But looking like the street person that he was, he didn’t dare approach them. So, he just hung out until they got in that cab. It’s a good thing none of those chilluns decided to inch off the curb, ’cause I bet he would have caught hell for savin’ them. ‘Course maybe I would have too, but something tells me it would have turned uglier for him, since he was sans a red cape. I mean, even I had thought a few bad things about him based on his attire.
(Naughty, naughty, but understandable. It’s a tricky problem that, seeing the real sometimes.)
He hurt my heart when he smiled at me, understandingly, as he passed me by and went his way. Made me pray, “Dear Lord, please come back in a designer suit so we folks can take you seriously. Otherwise, we might mistake you for a bum.”
Lawd a mercy, what’s we all gonna do? ‘Cause no matter what folks say…looks like appearances do matter…much more than the truth.
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Remember…
The Revolution will be Caramelized.
Peace, ya’ll.
