The other day at Chick-fil-A, some little kid called my four-year old daughter a word that is more commonly used to describe a vital part of the male anatomy. When he called my daughter that word, she responded instantly by saying, “That’s not my name. He’s calling me the wrong name.” She saw it as an inaccuracy, not an insult. I saw it as a chance to practice patience, as I really wanted to toss that kid in the deep end of the ball pit.
I didn’t though, society frowns on that kind of thing but as much as I disliked that kid, there’s one kid I dislike even more. I am of course talking about the “cry instigator” at church.
This is the kid that makes every other kid in his Sunday school class start crying. It happens all the time. My two year old daughter McRae is perfectly happy as we walk toward her class. She’s holding Barney’s sidekick Baby Bop (BJ and Riff are weak) and she’s smiling. La la la, off to class we go. But then she sees “sir cries a lot.” I can watch her face change. Suddenly she starts to think, “Why is that boy crying? Does he know something I don’t know? Should I be crying? Is that what we’re doing? What’s going on here? Are they out of goldfish? That’s it, isn’t it? I’m about to enter some sort of goldfishless Gulag. I should cry!”
And then it’s over. Especially since that punk cry instigator always stands at the door, clutching the little gate and blubbering a warning to any happy kids that cross his path.
That kid is the worst.
