THE MOST FUN WE'RE EVER GOING TO HAVE TODAY

Sometimes I think it'd be cool to have kids just so you could say emotionally abusive things to them and see how they respond. Often they are very inventive. Like this little girl at the grocery store yesterday. She was 3 or 4, and she was being pushed around in the cart by her very irritable mother, who looked to be in her early 20s. Cutoffs, dirty-blonde ponytail, pink bra straps hanging out of her tank top. We were all in the pickle aisle, and the girl was saying something — I couldn't make it out — that was really getting on her mom's nerves. So the mom jerks the cart to a halt, shocking the crap out of the kid. She points her finger threateningly in the kid's face and loudly says, "You need to shut it! Zip it! Lock it! Throw away the damn key!" I was expecting the kid to start bawling or something. I almost started bawling myself. But instead there was a moment of silence, followed by the kid saying very gently, "Look, I shut it." Then, seconds later, "It's all zipped." Then, "It's locked now." The mom had lost interest, though, and was engrossed in the label on a jar of olives. To no one in particular, the kid says, "I'm not going to throw away the key. I'm going to keep it in my pocket, so we can find it later."

Later, downtown, a tiny kid is walking hand in hand with his parents. He looks bored and hot, his bangs plastered to his forehead with kid sweat. His parents are window shopping intently and don't hear him ask: "Is this the most fun we're ever going to have today?"