Sunday, April 26, 2009

Who Else Can We Offend??

Rob left for a conference in Minneapolis this morning.  He'll be gone for four days.  And of course by 4 o'clock this afternoon I was already dying to get myself and my three kids out of the house.  So we fled to McDonalds.

Redwing has a pretty upscale Mickey D's.  The chairs are all padded, the playland has videogames with touch screens, there is "art" on the walls, all in all a decent place for a frazzled S@HM to waste an hour.  So we got our food and Maggie sat down to eat on the booth side of our table with the boy and Beatrice and I sat in the chairs.  This table happened to accommodate wheelchairs and had a little symbol in the center to inform people.  Of course Bee wanted to know all about it.

She asked, "What's this blue dot for?"

"To tell people that wheelchairs fit here," I told her.

"Oh," she says.  "Like for Old people."  We are surrounded by old people also eating dinner at 4:30.  

"No, honey," I try not to laugh at her.  "For handicapped people who are in wheel chairs."

"Oh."  She is clearly not impressed.

Of course Maggie has to put in her thoughts.  "Like for Fat people!" she chimes in.

"No," I say a bit too loudly and slightly relieved that there aren't any fat old people sitting next to us.  Thankfully the questions ended there before we offended any stinky, hairy, or far-sighted patrons, too.

I think my kids need sensitivity training.  Or I need to stop answering questions in public places!

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