That Boy is Following Me

Do you know me?  If so then you probably know I had a rather large amount of work over the last few days which I completed today.  Yippee ki yay motherfucker!

As a reward to myself, and more especially my daughter, I took a bit of the afternoon off and brought her to the park.  The grounds were rather empty bar a few people who we couldn't fully see as the playground is massive and full of wooden things to break your neck on.

My daughter ran off into the sunset, aka the sweltering heat of the playground, while I blissfully sat in the shade and started crocheting.  I know what you're thinking.  "Why did you crochet when you were celebrating a massive amount of crochet being completed?"  Well, it's a compulsion.  If I'm not working I'm falling behind- even when I'm not.  Yeah, I should probably be medicated.

Not moments after I felt myself decompressing- which by the way makes no sense as I was on me arse while working and still on me arse at the playground so there was no compression to speak of- my daughter returns.  

"Mommy- that boy is following me."

"Which boy?" I inquire, expecting to find some miniature neanderthal with silver teeth like Jaws from that James Bond film.

"That one right there."

I turn to find a chubby cheeked, hand me down wearing little blond boy who looks like he's either completely harmless or going to grow up into a serial killer and has already developed his charm to lure in victims.

"What's wrong with him?  Why can't he follow you?"

"He creeps me out."

Note, I have no idea why my daughter uses that expression.  I don't say it.  But since it completely makes sense to me as pretty much all of humanity creeps me out, it gave me a perfect insight into her feelings.

"Well why can't you just run away from him?"

I wish I hadn't said that. She looked at me as if I were one of those running zombies- completely against all logic. I think it was basically like telling her to swim away from jellyfish.  It's too late.  Once the jellyfish has been spotted you feel all vulnerable and icky.  You just have to get out of the water.

"So do you want to leave?"

"Um, okay."

Needless to say I felt a bit deflated as I had convinced myself I was a good parent for bringing my daughter to the park for no reason at all.  Surely shit parents don't do such wonderful, stimulating things for their shit children.  And here I was leaving the park not minutes after we had arrived.

While walking away she said,

"What's a riot?"

I immediately assume she has heard somebody say, "Oh, he's so funny! He's a riot."  But I decide to delve.

"What do you mean?  Where did you hear that?"

"Well, what's a prison riot?"

Why does my 7 year old even know the phrase 'prison riot'? That's when I decided I should probably quietly move back into the shit parent column.