Is This Your Son?

I was at Costco recently, buying gigantic things that we do not need, and my four-year-old was with me and sitting in the cart.  I don’t know if you have ever been to a Costco, but the registers there have a slightly different flow than other stores.  The shopper goes to one side of the register, while the cart goes on the other side.  I’m sure that there is a good reason for this, something to do with time and space and the universe, but what it boils down to is that, if you are a parent with kids riding in the cart, there will be a brief time of separation.

So I am standing on the one side of the belt, behind three women who are packing up, paying, and waiting respectively, and Edward is riding in the now-empty cart on the opposite side.  Our items have been off-loaded and are ready for purchase.  It was at this point that some random Costco employee, undoubtedly trying to be helpful, came up to my cart, pulled it forward quite a bit, walked up to the woman who was starting to leave, and asked her, “Is this your son?”

“No,” smiled the lady, and walked away.  Undeterred, Ms. Employee looked at the woman who was being rung out and asked her the same question, getting the same response.  Now she is getting nervous.  Whose son could this be?!  Certainly she was not going to ask the 4-year-old who he was with.  You can’t trust 4-year-olds.  Believe me.

“Excuse me, is this your son?” she asked loudly to the woman standing in front of me in line.  When it was confirmed that Edward was not the son of any of the women standing in line, she started to freak out just a little more.  “DOES ANYONE KNOW WHOSE SON THIS IS?!” she shouted loudly into the echoing warehouse, as Edward and I just looked at each other and rolled our eyes.

“Yes, that’s my son,” I said finally, ready to end this farce.  “Is there a problem?”

“Oh….” she said, looking suspicious and relieved at the same time.  “No, I just didn’t know who he belonged to…”

I should also point out that each of the other women in line had a cart, so by using some simple counting math one could easily figure out that the fourth cart in line belonged to the fourth person in line on the opposite side.  I can’t say for sure because I was not in her brain, but it seems to me that she did not ask me if Edward was my son for the exclusive reason that I am not female.

I try not to get up on my soap box and preach about Daddy Equality too too much, because I recognize that there is a system in place that favors female parents, and that complaining about things is not the way to make it better.  I try to live my life and share my stories in such a way that people will realize and notice that Dads can be decent parents too, and not just in a showing up sort of way, but in a fold the laundry, go on field trips, buy things at Costco sort of way.  But let me, for today, just say a simple and gentle WTF to that rando at Costco who tried to give my child away to several complete strangers.  Your way of thinking is outmoded and dangerous.  Next time I will not roll my eyes in amusement.  That is all.