Maybe I'll Have a New Sideline When My Proposed Handbasket Factory Opens For Business

Val has never been one to advocate the leashing of children.

Sure, she jumped on the bandwagon to promote public service bumper stickers such as "Don't Argue With Your Wife...Just Dicker!" and "Love Your Kids? Belt 'em!" back when jumping on bandwagons wasn't cool. But the practice of Soap-On-a-Rope-ing youngsters never really got Val riled up for or against. Until now.

This afternoon in Save A Lot, as I pushed my cart on its predesignated course, a little boy kept trying to throw himself under the wheels. Okay. Not that he was so coordinated. I would have needed to give him a little help, and I'm pretty sure that's frowned upon, even here in Missouri. But the next person he darts in front of may not be as tenderhearted and sugary sweet as Rainbows-and-Kittens Val.

There I was, ready to round the end cap at the jelly/peanut butter/condiment/pickle/olive aisle, when that wiry dynamo dressed in an orange t-shirt and navy blue track pants with a white stripe darted past, scooting his feet. He was like a weird, forward, speeded-up moonwalker. My cart caught his eye. Figuratively, not literally, but only because I have quick reflexes. Dasher momentarily stopped in his gliding tracks, like a deer in the headlights, and made eyes like Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone, but without slapping his dad's aftershave on his cheeks. That could be because I gave him the Teacher Eye. The look that let him know he was not nearly as cute and precious as he thought he was. He scampered on, house left.

It's not like the kid didn't know better. He was six or seven years old. Not at a stage where it would be easy to take candy from him. Or where he was just fractious because he was missing his nap. I don't profess to be a model parent. But my own kids never acted like this in a store. Sure, Genius was mighty cute hiding inside the round clothes rack at Walmart. But he wasn't running willy-nilly. He walked purposefully at that age when seeking out an associate to inquire about new hard drives or modems. Don't think I never had to leave my cart in the store and forget about shopping to haul a melting-down child to the car. I did. One time. That's all it took. And it was not The Pony. Kids will get away with what you let them.

I'll be darned if Dasher didn't reappear one aisle later, at the back of the store, approaching from the opposite side, and did the same thing. How he got all the way around the store and changed direction to double back is beyooooond me. It's not like he was fetching a forgotten item from his mom's list. I assume he had a mom. Because at the end of the pasta aisle, I saw him standing on the foot of a cart as a woman pushed him past the hot dog and cold cut cooler.

After I loaded my box of groceries in the back of T-Hoe, I looked in BOTH of my working mirrors to make sure I would not run over anything sneaky like that concrete-surrounded light pole at Office Max. Dasher dashed by my door and ran to the back of a small silver SUV parked directly across from me. Startlingly enough, it was NOT the same one that almost T-boned me on the road yesterday.

This silver SUV was full of folks. It was like a hillbilly clown car. I can say that, you know, being a hillbilly myself. It looked to me like the twenty-or-so people in the back seat threw up their hands as if to say, "NO MORE!" when Dasher tried to climb in. I waited and waited for his mom to walk by, but she did not. That's how far removed she was from controlling him. He could have been flattened crossing the parking lot.

I'm not saying people should put a metal choke collar on their offspring's neck, and give a yank every now and then. No. That would be inhumane. But sometimes, a tasteful padded harness with a nylon leash might just make life safer for their unruly underage progeny.