Siddity In The City

Patience is a virtue...sometimes.

So, with two days in a row off, Sid decided to sleep in. Noonish, when I woke up, I decided to drag my ass out to Brooklyn, to (finally) go to the new Target on Flatbush Ave., since apparently Manhattan is too, well, siddity to have a Target of its own. Being culturally siddity, yet pursificatorily cheap as hell, I love me some Target, so I will make the trip--Sid needs a bath rug, and ain't nothing I'm gonna drip all over on a regular basis worth more than $10. Now, getting to Flatbush Ave. from where I live is no big deal, so long as I walk a few blocks to get to the subway on W72nd and ride that sucker to Atlantic Avenue. So I did walk the few blocks. But you know what else is on W72nd? Why, Urban Outfitters, the hipster mecca I love to hate! So I decided to go there first. Y'all know that, though I hate Urban prices, I love Urban sales, so I drop in now and then. Last time I went, I got a $90 rug for less than $15. That time I spotted the cutest little bunny bath mat, for an entirely unreasonable $20. I checked it out online, and they were on sale for half price, but Urban, being the money-grubbing bastard-entity it is, also charges nearly $10 shipping if you spend less than, I dunno, $50 or so, which would have meant a paltry $1 in savings, so I decided to wait, patiently, and check out the price later. Sure enough, today, in store, guess what was selling for $9.99, with an extra 50% off? Who got her $20 bunny rug for $5? Mwahahaha! I also picked up two sets of tub toys marked down from $8 to $1 each. So I got $36 worth of schwag for a whopping $7 today, and never had to spend an MTA-allotted dime. Sweet. Patience is a virtue. Somtimes. And sometimes you just need to handle your shit fast. All aglow with my thrifty triumph over the metaphorical retail Man, I stopped in Tip Top Shoes (155 W72nd, a hopskipjump away from a Krispy Kreme, woohoo) for a quick look around, and fell in love with these sporty little jammies. Now, normally discount shoe shopping is an experience akin to an opiate high for Sid, who friends know will go on an interstate (or Internet) quest to "score" her shoe hit at the right price. Unfortunately, some dingbat woman on a similar mission felt obliged to bring along her effing terror of a grandchild, spoiling the experience for everyone around her. While Dingbat Grandma chatted and sent salesmen scurrying for shoes, her eightish grandson ambled around the store trying to tear down displays with a shoehorn. Seriously. Now, I know it's hard to step out with a child. Really, I do. But goddammit, if you're going to do it, control the little monkey. Now. Not when you get home, not when you get outside, not even in a whisper, which is a clear indication to the child that they are the ones in control, 'cause mommydaddy is afraid of what other people think. Now. Nothing brings a point home like humiliation before witnesses. I hate it when folks take their kids out and just let them run wild, because that means everyone around them will be doing the damage control that should be the child-walker's responsibility. This point would be totally lost on DG. When the little hellion finally reached a peak of irritating destruction and DG seemed clearly unwilling to exert any control over him, the salesmen stepped in to take away the shoehorn and shoo the little PITA away from the displays. The little monkey just walked away, ignoring the salesman, until his granny finally spoke up. The kid's response was to drop his weapon where he stood and move on to another display. The beleaguered salesman, who clearly has done a good job raising runts of his own, picked it up, shoved it back in the kid's hand, and told him to give it back the right way. DG, being now forced to acknowledge her charge's misbehaviour, half-heartedly chided the kid, made some "Really-he's-gifted-but-has-ADD-and-his-mother-and-I-can't-control-him" remarks for the benefit of anyone who could hear, and then promptly went back to ignoring his misdeeds, giving the lie to her "we-try-so-hard" schpiel. The kid went and pulled some other stunt, and the salesman told him to sit down with his gran; then the little punk started trying to tear up the chair, and beleaguered salesman was pissed. At that point, he gave up trying to control the kid and asked DG, the person who should have been watching him, to at least try to bring him to heel. Now, it's a damn shame when store staff have to check you and your rugrat once. But twice? The shame! Or at least, the average caretaker would be ashamed. DG, however, was not. In fact, the hussy got huffy, and blew up at the salesman. It went something like this: "I can't help it, he has ADHD! It's a sickness! We've been dealing with this for three years!" And other lame excuse-making and so forth. Now, pardon my presumption, but I am pretty sure I and all those who witnessed this exchange thought, "Bitch, if you knew he was a hardheaded little beast who liked to act up in public, why the hell did you bring him along?" Again, a point which was clearly lost on DG. The salesmen, no doubt scenting a discrimination suit at her pregnant mention of "sickness," backed down as fast as they could, which is a shame, because they were not in the wrong to take her to task. She should have taught monkey-boy a lesson by taking him home and giving him a time out, or whatever, as soon as he started to misbehave, rather than selfishly inflicting him upon everyone else so she could try on some damn Clarks. For reals. It seems a lot of relatively well-off children these days are being diagnosed with behavioral "disorders," but having seen the lack of control their parents exercise (due to guilt or fear or disinterest or whatever), Sid thinks that a good two-thirds of them are really just bad-ass kids. If they were poor, people would just say they were bad-ass kids. Why do these little monkey-behinds (and their errant parents) get to claim illness? It ain't right. That woman should have handled her bidness. Not one to be distracted from a discount hunt for long, even by irritating kids and their irritating grannies, I turned to my shoe-fitting task. They didn't have my regular size, but fortunately the shoes ran large and I could wear a full size smaller. I considered thinking about the shoes overnight, but they only had two pairs in the color I wanted, and I really lurved them, and in a city with 8 million people, there is a good chance that three women who wear the most common shoe size in the nation want some orange kicks on the same day, and I did not want to be loser #3. I bought my happy shoes of light. Handled my bidness right quick, sirrah.

posted by Sid @ 8/10/2004 09:15:00 PM