I was grocery shopping the other day with my 4 year old daughter. My daughter went over to the apples and picked one up. This old lady came over to her and took the apple from her and looked at me and said” Hey you should teach her not to touch those! She could have lots of germs!” then walked away giving MY four year old a dirty look as she walked away shaking her head. Who does that!? she is four years old! you don’t give four year olds dirty looks. I could have slapped that woman!
—Hope I don’t see her again!
This article appears in May 21-27, 2009.
I wonder how she thinks the apples got there on the shelf!
I’d have been tempted to say: “There are plenty of ways I could respond to you right now, but I won’t bother- as I’m already one-up simply by not having to walk around in your angry, bitter, old skin.”
She was obviously just a cranky old lady. And a cranky one at that if she doesn’t wash her apples before she eats them.
I meant she’s a stupid one. Not cranky. Guess I’m the stupid one!
uh… and you don’t have to purell apples.
She SHOULD be ingesting plenty of germs so she doesn’t call in sick to work 5 days a month.
bitter bitsy bag lady.
Agreed. If we’d let our kids eat dirt and bugs more often I think we’d have a healthier bunch of kids
Exactly! mud pie for supper it is!
aww thats a sin, i guess she was grouchy!! her hands were probly ten times more dirty than the little girls were. i think i would have slapped her!!!! or chucked the apples at her. what a bitch
What a flaccid old cranky cow. Some people seem to be menopausal since birth. You have two ways to grow old – be bitter and nasty or dance like it’s 1999. I prefer the latter myself.
“you could have really slapped that woman” – you could have been polite and pointed out that you encourage your daughter to be inquisitive about healthy eating and ALWAYS wash your fresh produce, thank the woman for her opinion then tell her to shove a granny smiths up her dirt chute along with an English cucumber as it”s probably the closest thing to a real cock she’s had in ages.
I bet your four year old was screaming, yelling and running around unsupervised and getting on other shoppers’ nerves.
Three cheers for the little old lady for teaching you and your kid a lesson!
Regardless, NGF, it wasn’t that lady’s place to discipline another person’s child. If she had a problem with that, she should’ve brought it up to the kid’s mother, not the kid. If that was MY kid I’d make that old bat cry.
I can be mean when I want to be 😉
Whatever, PK. Kids are given too much credit these days for doing absolutely nothing. Parents and elders are almost “afraid” to say/do anything to kids because its “negative” or “disciplinary”.
Not everyone’s child is a perfect little angel; no matter how much a parent says or thinks.
If the parent won’t speak to the child, someone else deserves to.
Little girl, no pores, no sweat glands, tiny nails, delicate hands. Yeah, that’s REALLY disgusting. I can’t even begin to tell how many middle aged people I see handling food inappropriately. The woman probably sat on her needle after an all night sewing session with her crotchy friends.
I’m not saying kids don’t suck these days, but it’s not anyone else’s place to butt into someone else’s business. People should REALLY start taking care of their own shit before they presume to take care of someone else’s.
Then the mother shouldn’t let her brat run around the grocery store like its a playground then, PK 😀
I disagree PK. If a kid is misbehaving in public and the parent’s aren’t doing anything, I think it’s fair for someone to step in and try and set an example or teach a lesson.
I was just at a wedding where there was a kid running around the desert table taking food and putting it back half-eaten. The parents didn’t seem to care, so someone else stepped up and sorted the kids out. Proper thing in my opinion.
Wow what a cow I would have told her to go to leave my kid alone and its none of her business. My mom did things like that for me when I was a kid. Other people have no right in butting in on things like that. And hey if I saw a little girl grabbing a apple I’d smile and be glad its not a chocolate bar or candy or junk food 🙂
I was thinking the same thing Miles. Not necessarily in this situation, as the child wasn’t misbehaving as far as we know, just touching an apple, which I do on occasion, and don’t get yelled at for. But there are certainly times when I wish I could say something to a child who is acting inappropriately and their parents are doing nothing. Most kids will learn if they’re told the right thing, but some just never are.
So we go from a child touching an apple to her being out of control?? Bit of a leap, you gonad.
I would have told her if she ever touched my kid again I’d break her hand. Saying something is one thing, but coming over and getting physical? Unacceptable.
Yeah I agree Guyute, everyone is just assuming that the child was running all over the place and the mother wasn’t doing anything. I don’t remember the OP saying anything like that. But I guess EVERY chld is like that right?
I also would hav given that women a good talking to if she ever did that to my child.
Really only NGF is assuming that. Most people are agreeing with you that the old woman was in the wrong, and I am inclined to agree with that. I was only disagreeing with PK that when a kid does misbehave (not necessarily the kid in the story) it is OK for people to step in and sort the kid out if the parents are not going to.
If the kid was doing more than just touching apples, if he was licking them and putting them back, or if he was tearing open cereal boxes or something and the parent was doing nothing…what would you do then?
I would probably talk to the kid and tell them they shouldn’t be doing that or pass the buck and inform an employee or manager.
😀 Yeah……..kids are dumb.
Even though I wash it when I get it home, I wouldn’t want to buy fruit that had some 4 year old’s sticky, grimy, little hands all over it. Just because you think your sprog is life’s greatest miracle doesn’t mean everyone else is going to feel the same way. Let your child learn and explore in places that don’t involve touching food destined for other people’s dinner tables.
Maybe the old lady saw that one first and was saving it for a special pie for Sunday dinner.
But the kid wasn’t misbehaving, she just picked up AN APPLE. I thought washing produce was a well-known practice….
I would of told her I was planning on buying it but now that her dirty old hands touched it no way. Mess with my child and I’ll take you down. I do make them mind their manners, not run around etc. I also let them explore their world and teach them how to do things like pick out fruit. If I witnessed someone doing this to someone elses child, I would walk over and touch all the apples I could while singing ludicris “get back mother fucker you don’t know me like that” hahaha