Thursday, July 31, 2008

Down With the Mouse

You know, the dreaded mouse. The big one that sings and dances and serves pizza and lures your children in with the promise of fun games! and little tickets! and prizes! I never have minded going there. It can get crazy, yes, and crowded. But it has always been worth it to see the looks of pure joy on the kids faces. That is until today.

Today fell right into the category of the mouse is pure evil and I think we might not go back for a very, very long time.

There were at least 5 groups there: daycares, camps, random kids off the street. It was complete mayhem. We ordered the food & got the tokens and let the kids free with 5 tokens each. I only give 5 at a time so they have to come back every few minutes because I have a hard time having them not in my line of vision. So, things were going pretty well. The food got there, which was eaten by some and not by others and then off they went. I tried to eat but even then kept noticing the horrible behavior by these other children. First of all we were approached by at least 5 other children asking us for tokens. I told them they needed to find their mommy. To which they responded by looking at me like I had 5 heads and saying "We're on a fieldtrip." I guess that should have caused me to say "Oh in THAT case HERE, have our tokens." I didn't and they stomped off. Then Eric ran over to me in tears because some little boy knocked him into a game. I'd like to give the benefit of the doubt that it was an accident, but really, watching these kids, I don't even know.


At one point Zack was hiding under the table. I'm not sure why, but I think maybe it was a bit overwhelming for him. In the end, my friend and I walked around the place with all the kids instead of just the smaller ones because it was scary, and easier to maneuver with a mom around.

There were adults with these kids, but you really couldn't tell because they were never around for the bullying, begging, and various other bad behavior.

I could go on, but I won't because, honestly I don't want to relive it. It was bad. I was shaking by the time we left and I think it was just the stress. And in case you think I am just overreacting, there were plenty of other mom's complaining. I even overheard a worker in the prize section say "I'm afraid for my life."

I will say that if any of my children were ever to behave that way in public I would fall over dead right then and there. Really.


Suffice it to say it could be a really, really long time before we return. And at the very least I will be phoning ahead to see if there are any groups of mass proportions there.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh.my.gosh. What a complete nightmare. Give yourself a DC for surviving it. Oh and the 5 tokens at a time is a fabulous idea. I am storing that away.

TheVillamorFamily said...

Man....that made me stressed just reading it! Makes me sad for those hoodlums that have no parent telling them how to act in public! and these are the people our children will deal with in High School....gee....don't want to think about that!

Make that 2 DC for surviving the day!

Kellan said...

I'm sorry about the craziness at the RAT TRAP - kids do love the place, don't they?

Hope you have had a good weekend - Kellan

Melinda said...

I love the 5 tokens idea--I'm definitely going to use that...as for the other kids--I almost hate going public places in the summer because of all the daycare kids who are supervised, but only in theory.

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