I went to the park with one of my friends the other day. Eva is too young to really use the park but it was a chance to get out of the house and enjoy the sunshine. I sat there like an iguana and let the rays soak into my bones. I tried multiple times to get Eva to play in the grass but she wasn’t having it. She just kept on crawling over to the wood chips under the toys. At first I would pick her up and move her back to the grass, but that was a nuisance and I tired of the routine quickly. So I let her sit in the wood. She straightaway began gnawing on the wood chips. I didn’t care because I was busy warming my bones.
Soon two other women began talking about Eva and pointing over at me. I knew exactly what was happening. The one woman, who I will refer to as Nosy Nancy, shouted over to me. “Do you know she’s eating the wood?” “Yeah,” I replied. Nosy Nancy wasn’t placated with this. “You shouldn’t let her eat the wood chips. It’s probably not good for her.” I responded with an apathetic, “Hmm.” She shot me dagger eyes and I could tell Nancy wasn’t going to leave it alone. I walked over to Eva, dug the wood chip out of her mouth, emptied her hands of the sticks that were next in line and moved her back onto the grass with me. Eva screamed.
And Nancy wouldn’t let it go. “I don’t have a problem with kids eating dirt,” she said, “but these wood chips are really dirty.”
What? Wood chips are dirty but dirt is clean? There’s a difference between eating dirt and the wood beneath the playground toys? You wouldn’t have bothered me if she was eating dirt because, you know, that’s acceptable? My suspicions that Nancy was an idiot were cemented. I didn’t bother to comment. Seeing that I wasn’t going to engage in lunacy with her, Nancy turned back to the other mom and commenced a ten minute conversation about the merits of eating dirt. She also threw in a few jabs about how she just couldn’t imagine letting her kids eat the wood particles.
Well, imagine this. You’re stupid and your kid is a gremlin.
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