Life in a surveilance state part 1: introduction and first outing.

Welcome, my freaky droogies, to Life in a Surveilance State, what I hope will be an ongoing topic here at Holocaust Labs.

See, for the past couple years, I’ve been a crazy recluse.  hardly ever leaving my apartment except for work and groceries and trips to the laundromat.  I’m trying to change that, and I think that writing about it will be a good way to encourage myself to do it more.

My big question whenever people would tell me to get out more was always “and do what, precisely?”  after which I would viciously shoot down their every suggestion.  It was today on an unexpectedly prolonged outing for a haircut (pictures in a future post) that I decided on my own answer to that question.  I will go out and people-watch.  It’s something my dad always did when he was out and about, and as I get older he seems righter and righter about a lot of things, so I figured what the hell.

I always get my haircut at Regis Hair Salon.  it’s a bit pricey, but i figure it’s worth it for a haircut that will not look stupid.  these are people trained to deal with mutant head-shapes and unusual hair behavior, and if i want their special ninja skills applied to my own head I must be ready to pay ninja prices.  and I am.  They were a bit understaffed when I walked up and asked for a haircut, and asked that I come back in a little while when they’d have more people on hand.

So I wandered down the mall a bit to get some food and soda, settled into a booth at Sbarro’s pizza, and that’s when I saw a sort of surreal comic juggling act.  Suburban Mom was at a nearby table with three kids, eldest maybe 11, youngest maybe 2.  The toddlerwas sipping from one of those impossibly huge sodas that Sbarro’s sells.  “Bob” almighty, that soda was about the size of her entire torso, and she was sucking on that straw like there was no tomorrow.

Toddler was also fighting with mom, because they wanted to A) hold the soda and B) alternate between holding the drink and putting it back on the table the way grown-ups do and C) occasionally sit next to it because it’s funny to sit next to a drink almost as big as oneself.  Some grizzled biker-ish dude elsewhere in the shop and I were both watching Mom and Toddler fuss over the drink, realizing that there were about a dozen different ways this situation could go wrong.  Spills, temper tantrums, drinks flung across the restaurant, food flung across the restaurant…

… and Suburban Mom handled it masterfully, using a blend of patience, firmness, occasional quick spanks, and lightning-quick reflexes to keep the toddler happily beveraged and the drink unspilled.  Questions races through my mind.  Why buy a drink that huge for a kid that small?  Where’s this tiny-bodied little kid gonna hold all that soda?  What’d she do to the other two kids to make sure they sit and eat their pizza in silence while she toddler-wrangles?

Thinking back to my own mom, who successfully kept her mutant teenage son (me, when I was younger) in check while toddler-wrangling (my sister, when she was younger), i realized the answer:  a blend of Fear (shut up and behave or else) and Reward (thank you for shutting up and behaving – here’s ten bucks).

and she handled it all masterfully.  the elder kids sat and ate their pizza.  the toddler shifted between their own seat and Mystery Mom’s lap, tried to lift the oversize drink, tried to open the oversized drink, nearly spilled the oversized drink, and Mystery Mom guided toddler between lap and seat, snatched tipping drink out of the air twice and set it firmly on the chair next to toddler for easy drinking, moved drink successfully out of toddler’s reach and gave toddler a good swat to prevent them from reaching for it, re-secured drink-lid as toddler drank with a quick ninja strike.  it was like well-choreographed high-speed slapstick comedy.  it was wonderful.

and when I swat the kid, I don’t mean child abuse.  i mean parenting, i mean a quick open-palmed swat to some well-cushioned body part as a way to make a kid stop what they’re doing instantly and pay attention to the parent, hard enough only to get a “what’d you do that for?” puzzled look from the kid.

So I raise my Jolt Cola in salute to Mystery Mom in Sbarro’s, who could somehow keep two older kids cowed into silence while eating her own pizza and preventing a toddler from spilling a giant soda.