This morning, I was sitting in a bank's lobby, waiting for a meeting. While I was there, I witnessed a most fascinating vignette. Through the glass, I could see the vestibule where the ATM was located. A mother and her small daughter came in. The little girl couldn't have been much past two years old. The mother went to the ATM to conduct her transaction, and left the child to her own devices.
Children being adept at entertaining themselves, the tyke toddled straightaway to the garbage can in the corner of the vestibule. Its top was an ashtray, filled with sand and cigarette butts. I watched as the little girl scooped up a handful of sand and then dropped it on the ground beside her. She did this again and again, in a Zen-like fashion.
At no point during her long interaction with the ATM did the mother look over and notice the derring-do of her offspring. When she finally turned aside from the machine and discovered her child busily dumping cigarette butts on the floor, she shot me an apologetic look, brushed the kid off thoroughly (she was obviously not pressed for time), and went on her way.
A number of things about this upset me. There was no word to the bank employees that, sorry, there's a small mess here, and can I help you clean it up? But more important, how could the woman not watch her own kid with half an eye while she's at an ATM? I mean, was it that hard for her? Required that much concentration? What if the girl had been eating those cigarette butts?
And that, my friends, in a nutshell, is What Is Wrong With America Today.
My kitchen is: On the mend. We had a frightening brush with the dishwasher not working, but it's better, now.
Posted by andrea at March 28, 2003 07:50 PM