Life with Kids and Traveling with them too!

You know those days where you wake up and your inner self is telling you “just stay in bed?”  Well my inner self was screaming that at me today….but unfortunately, somebody had to take my daughter to preschool, so I had to ignore my inner self and go on with my day.  My morning got off a little rocky and my daugher arrived 5 minutes late to preschool.  She was quick in letting me know that she did not approve of being late.  When we reached her room and the class activities were in full gear, she quickly looked at me and said, “Mommy, you made me late for school today.” I quickly looked down at her realizing that I completely forgot to have her brush her teeth.  I than looked at my son with his breakfast still visible on his cheeks and chin.  I quickly said to her, “I know sweet pea, but the fact that we made it at all today is something to be proud of.”  Not knowing what I meant, she gave me a kiss goodbye and on she went to class.  With hope that my day would improve,  my son and I headed back home.  While my son was napping, I proceeded to call customers to confirm their various orders for baby equipment.  While on the phone with one customer, I begin to cough uncontrollably (I’m still recuperating from the flu).   All the coughing made me get a pounding headache.  The kind of headache that doesn’t seem to go away no matter how many Excedrins you take.  A few hours later and with my headache still in tow, my son and I were off for a lunch date.  I was looking forward to seeing an old friend that I hadn’t seen in over a year.  I just knew it was the “pick me up” I needed.  When I got to the restaurant there was no available parking up front, so I had to park in the “money required to park here” lot behind the restaurant.  I only had a $100 bill in my wallet (normally I have no cash, but this was left over from our Hawaii trip).  I asked the parking attendant if he could break a $100.  “Frank” ( I later learned his name), informed me that it was company policy not to accept bills larger than a $50.  I than explained to him that it was all I had & that I would go into the restaurant, get change, and bring it back to him.  He wasn’t going for it. ”Frank” is a stickler for his “company” rules.  I let him in on the fact that I had my “infant” son in the back seat, I was late for a lunch date, and I promised that I would give him his $5, if he would just let me park.  I thought for sure when he heard I had my son in the back that he would show some compassion and let me through.  Nope, in fact he said to me,  “Lady, if you had a monkey in the back, that still wouldn’t matter to me and I still wouldn’t let you in the parking lot!”  I mean, can you believe this guy?  I asked him what my options were and what I could do.  (Not that calmly though….I’m pissed, obviously).   He told me (in his own words), “Go to a damn bank! I don’t care, but you ain’t getting in my parking lot with a $100 bill!”  I then asked him for his name……okay, not quite.  First I yelled some expletives at him and then I asked him for his name.  With a smirk on his face he offered to give me the company’s phone number.  Normally I pride myself that I do not “stoop down” to such a level.  In fact, I teach my daughter all the time about God’s Golden Rule and that sometimes people are not nice but we may not know what kind of life they have, so we should just be nice in return.  Maybe it was my headache….maybe it was me having a rotten day…..it doesn’t matter….I should practice what I preach.  The fact that I used language that I rarely ever use (really) and reacted to this man in the exact manner he expected, is unacceptable.  How would he have reacted if I had said, “Thank you sir for being so understanding.  I appreciate you assisting me in this manner” and drove off?  I can imagine he would have been completely dumbfounded and probably felt on his own (without me having to yell it at him) that he was a jerk.  And perhaps he would have been a little nicer the next time a mom or anyone else for that matter came to his window.  So, I am not proud of my actions today….even though, in my opinion, he completely deserved it.  I told my husband the story and he followed up with a phone call to the company.  I doubt anything will come of the incident.  Afterall, Frank did follow company procedure and although he was completely rude and nasty to me, he didn’t break any laws.  And as unpleasant as the incident was for me, it did make me realize that its easy to be rude and nasty to people, what truly takes skill, is showing your children how “calm and respectable” you can be in these types of situations.  “Treat people how you want to be treated”, thats God’s Golden Rule.  It’s not “Treat people how they treat you.” It sounds like I need to do a little more practicing on following the rules…….

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