A Disturbed Hillbilly Mom

I am disturbed. Stop it! Stop looking at each other over my head and nodding with a raised eyebrow. What I mean is, I am disturbed by an incident I witnessed yesterday. The Pony and I hoofed it over to my doctor's office for my lab, which was a routine blood test. I'm not disturbed by the doctor's office. Au contraire! I was pleasantly surprised that it took only 5 minutes of waiting to be called into the lab. When I went for a flu shot, it took 45. Oh, and when we arrived and found a parking space on the 4th row, the trolley man stopped right in front of us. Normally, I refuse him and walk. But the Pony was with me. "Can we ride the trolley, Mom?" Never let it be said that I have disappointed the Pony. That boy has me wrapped around his little finger.

Our normal trolley procedure is for me to walk, and both boys to ride the trolley. I usually beat them. On occasion, I have ridden with them. They get in the very back, where there's a little chain to close to 'hold people in'. This time, the Pony and I were alone. So he couldn't ride in the back by himself. We climbed onto a side seat. The Pony adapted quite well to the wheel well area. We drove about 3 cars down, and the trolley man stopped. "Can I give you a ride?" he asked a high-school-looking dude and a girlfriend-looking chick. "Oh, bless you! I sure can!" The dude hobbled in front of the trolley and climbed in the other side with his chick. I'm no doctor, but I'm guessing ankle injury. Then we heard, "Please wait! Tell him to stop!" It was an older lady back by our LSUV. I hollered to the trolley man, who put on the brakes. The lady loaded herself in the back, and hooked the chain. Off we went. I could have been up to the 4th floor and signed in by the time we arrived, but the Pony enjoyed himself. "We never ride with this many people, Mom!" He's easy to please.

Anyhoo...back to my disturbance. Since it was a fasting blood test, I'd had no food or drink all day. When we left, I made a beeline to Sonic. Only the healthiest food for me and My Little Pony. I forgot my last experience and chose the grilled chicken sandwich, which was a lesser evil than the bacon cheeseburger I was craving. Little did I remember that the grilled chicken is served on a kiddie bun, not the big hamburger bun, and is...how you say...piddlin'. It was bad enough that the thing was a Roloff of the grilled chicken world. It came with only a tomato slice and some lettuce. But the worst part was that it was OH SO DRY. Like when your HH cooks it too long on the grill, and it is so dry that you can't bite it, but those fibers like threads of celery peel off in your mouth. It was not tasty. But that is not the source of my disturbance. Of course, the Pony ordered two corn dogs and a soda. Corn dogs which take Sonic 10 minutes to cook. We always hold up the line. And while I was waiting, I saw it. My disturbance.

A 30- or 40-something woman pushed a baby stroller across the divided highway near the stoplight. Oh, she wasn't in a crosswalk. There's no such thing on this 4-lane highway. She pushed from The Devil's Playground side to the median without me noticing. Then she caught my eye when that stroller hung up in some high grass in the median. She came up the side of the median and shoved and rocked that stroller. I was afraid it was going to burst out onto the pavement when the light turned green and let all those cars flow. But she twisted it at the last moment, and let it sit sideways on the shoulder until the cars passed. The she wheeled across two more lanes and down through some weeds and up to a blacktop parking lot. The stroller hung up again at the edge of the asphalt. She heaved. The stroller hit its front wheels, and the back wheels went up in the air and dropped down. That woman did this about 4 times. Sweet Gummi Mary! I thought perhaps she was using it as a grocery cart. I've seen that happen in Hillbillyville. I peered closer. She was about 100 feet away. And inside, under the hoody top thingy of that stroller, was a baby. Not a newborn, but perhaps a 6-monther. And every time she hammered that stroller into the edge of the pavement, that baby's head flopped forward and back. I WAS DISTURBED! Not disturbed enough to climb out of my LSUV and rush over and give her a piece of my mind. It's not good to meddle in Hillbillyville. People don't cotton to meddling. Especially baby-floppers. I didn't think it rated a 911 call. What would I say? "A woman is driving a baby stroller recklessly by the Sonic at the Wal-Mart stoplight"? She would have been gone by the time a police car arrived. I didn't want to be charged with a false report or 911 abuse. She couldn't hear me yell because of the traffic. She may have been simple and not known that she was flopping the baby. She couldn't see through the hoody roofy thingy. It's not like she left the baby sitting on the sidewalk and went back home 20 miles away, like one of our former students. I'm at a loss here for the right thing to do. But I do know that I was disturbed.

WWCD?
By that, I mean: What Would Commenters Do?