2008 wrap up

Before I move forward into a very welcome new year, I have to clean out some things in my brain that ended my 2008.

I am off work this week and am in heaven with that. However, the old office called and needed me to stop and do a few things and as a person who cannot make up excuses on the spot, I said okay since I really had nothing else pressing to do. I went in on Tuesday after lunch.....and got out of there at 10:30 p.m. I had simply tried to switch out a bad wireless router and stupidly allowed the software with the new one to run its course which blew out all of the IP addresses on the two network cards. After figuring out what happened (and putting up with people stopping to ask, "Are you having fun?" when clearly I was not) I scrambled to find the IP numbers and put them in. Turns out our tech hadn't provided a very comprehensive list so it was a LOT of trial and error. I made several desperate phone calls to her and she finally answered her phone at 7:00 p.m. She graciously drove in and helped me finish it because it was too big a task to tackle via phone. I was so pissed at myself and at the situation that I skipped supper. I know! Crazy, huh? And I'm only going to bill them for half my time because I feel bad about how long it took. Lesson: No good deed goes unpunished.

So yesterday, I take the day off and head out shopping. I go to the mall and end up walking behind a woman with a very young child, probably less than 18 months. She is tall and wearing a very loud floral print dress, a jacket, and black sneakers with black socks. The child is walking beside her but it's so little that it's hard for him to keep up. She is holding his hand which is stretched way over his head because she is tall. She stops and begins whacking him on his bottom, yelling at him to keep up. I am horrified, and try to figure out what's going on. There is nothing a child that age can do that warrants that kind of whacking. I get closer and she tries to walk with him again but finally picks him up and loudly complains that she will carry him but after his diaper is changed, he needs to walk.

I'm wondering what to do. I think about approaching her but I don't know what to say. I follow her for a while but end up in another store where I lost track. I'm troubled by the mother's (maybe she's not the mother) behavior but I go off into my own world and move on.

Later, I'm at the food court getting lunch. I see a couple of police officers, one of them holding a small child. I immediately notice they are police officers, and not mall security officers, and then I realize it's the same small child. Two more officers join them and a tall, burly male office carries the little one away with the other officers heading the same way. The little boy is quiet and not worried that he's being carried out with strangers. I see no sign of the "mother". I also notice some women sitting nearby who are watching and pointing, and I hear someone say "She called them" so I get my lunch and walk over to them. I tell them I noticed them and wondered if they were part of the situation. One of the ladies had seen the same woman in the floral print dress and had called the police when she saw her hitting the small child. I told them that I had seen her hitting him earlier and was so glad they called the police. I thanked them and went to eat my lunch.

Now wasn't that stupid that I didn't think of that? I was trying to figure out what to say to the angry woman and not quite sure of what to do, and the other woman just did what you should do -- let the authorities handle it. I figured it was a good time to learn that lesson, and I hope I will remember it in the future.

Fifty-one years old and dumb as a post. Hope I'm smarter in 2009!