Chloe and I waited the final thirty minutes of Ellie’s gymnastics lesson having completed our own hour of Kindergym. Chloe was generally in a good mood having had her turn in the foam pit and used the black knobs on the various apparatus as microphones, ripe for licking.
We adjourned from the stinky change room to the even more sour smelling waiting room.
We overheard conversations between parents regarding disappointing report cards with an emphasis on all that is wrong with the teachers, one conversation about what websites had the best, cheapest Caribbean getaways. I reached for a pen a couple of times but had just Chloe’s cracker crumbs to attempt to scroll some of the better vacation buys on my pant leg.
Chloe added the predictable two embarrassing comments;
- I like her butt—referencing the woman with the quite unusually shaped bottom and incredibly unforgiving yoga pants.
- Is that a boy?—while pointing to the 10-12 year old boy who was clearly a boy to the rest of the crowd and whose day, perhaps entire weekend had now been completely destroyed by a two year old.
It was the woman on her phone that upset me.
She was one of those “Hey everybody, listen to my conversation while I laugh and speak loudly to someone way more interesting than any of you.”
I’m paraphrasing (remember I had just the crumbs to take notes) but her conversation went something like this,
It was about a public execution. It was really interesting. This guy plans to execute another guy who had sold drugs to his son and I think the son died or something.
Pause.
Yeah, he strings him up. It’s pretty awful and done in such a public way.
Girl’s kindergym didn’t seem the best place to be discussing public executions (is there really a “right” place for that?) and I gave a what-is-the-matter-with-you look at the woman but she paid no attention. It was nothing but stringing him up and executing drug lords on her weekend agenda.
I wasn’t the only one either. I saw another woman rolling her eyes and staring at her with her neck out and her hands in that what-are-you-thinking? Not to be confused with the I-don’t-know-the-answer pose for school aged kids ages eight and under.
She was either angered with the content of this woman’s conversation or had just realized the unopened book on her lap was now ruined.
