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No Screaming Kids Allowed
by Deborah Clapp

While working with Ralph at the Bookstore, occasionally I would run errands to get supplies. On one particular afternoon when I got back Ralph was all upset and muttering to himself. I asked him what was wrong and all he managed to say at that time was that he would get the supplies from now on. I asked him if I was gone too long. That wasn't the problem at all. After many minutes of Ralph smoking and sputtering to himself and looking like a human dragon he finally started to talk.

As it turned out the problem happened to be that a young mother came in the store with her two small children. Ralph was not a great fan of children in the first place. The children that would come into the store would mess up the lower shelves of the magazines. The parents would not stop them or clean up after them. The children on this day for a change were quiet and well behaved and all was well, until a very large man came in shortly after they did. The man carried a milk crate with him to sit upon if he got tired. As soon as the children spotted him they started to scream at the top of their little lungs and were terrified that the man was going to fall on them.

My mind still can't comprehend the chaos that erupted like a dormant volcano in that tiny store that day. I was laughing as Ralph was telling me his plight. Oh, how I wished at the time I could have been a fly on the wall watching the show. Ralph was not amused with the fact that I thought his story was so hysterical. Over twenty years later and with two daughters of my own I have experienced some of my own meltdowns firsthand and I wasn't laughing at the time. I think that's called Karma.