Disturbing Episode

On Tuesday, I was at the bookstore with the Lone Star Baby, taking a potty break. She had used the potty and was waiting for me to finish in the tiny stall, chattering in her high little voice about everything we were doing as toddlers will. Someone slammed rather loudly and dramatically into the stall next to us, causing me to think sympathetically about how sometimes you really have to go. Then, however, the person began repeating everything the Lone Star Baby said in a nasty, mocking, gutteral and somewhat incoherent way, interspersed with cussing. This was kind of scary. I scooted the Lone Star Baby over to the opposite side of the stall and waited, hoping that the woman would leave while we were still in there, without incident. After a little more of this, she did, banging lots of doors on her way out. I waited a bit more and then eased out, making sure the coast was clear before I let the baby follow me. We washed up and left and I looked around the store a bit for the woman's purse strap, which I had been able to see, but did not spy it on anyone and finally told a clerk about it, although there was hardly anything that she could do to help. It really was scary. The Lone Star Girl uses that bathroom by herself all the time and it would hardly make sense to stop letting her go into public restrooms unattended, although that is certainly a mother's first impulse after such an event.

I guess the woman may have been drunk and what I really suspect is that she was probably just crazy. A third possibility that popped into my head, though, was that she was one of those scary childfree people and was angry at the sound of a child chattering away as mine was doing. Those childfree movement folks like to talk like they are just rational, fair-minded folk when the mainstream media is interviewing them, but anyone who has ever seen the things they say or the ghastly pictures they post when they are trolling around the Web knows better - they are wicked. This woman was probably just crazy, but to hear the angry mocking of my baby and know that there are people in the world who are truly hateful towards children was very unsettling.